


it all comes back through the holes and the cracks where you thought you let it slip away

by janie_tangerine



Series: jb week 2017 [2]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Consent Issues, Emotional manipulation (past), Eventual Fluff, Eventual Romance, F/M, Hopeful Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Jaime Lannister Has Issues, Jaime/Brienne Appreciation Week, Mental Breakdown, Mental Health Issues, Panic Attacks, Past Abuse, Past Cersei Lannister/Jaime Lannister, Post - A Dance With Dragons, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Psychological Trauma, Self-Doubt, The Author Regrets Nothing, Westeros Psychology 101 or: I TRIED, as if anyone had a doubt, nor to C as a character, this fic is not friendly towards rhaegar's life choices during the rebellion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-02
Updated: 2017-10-02
Packaged: 2019-01-08 03:29:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 22,586
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12246093
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/janie_tangerine/pseuds/janie_tangerine
Summary: in which what started as a normal conversation makes Jaime's un-dealt with PTSD catch up with him at once and Brienne isn't letting him self-destruct.





	it all comes back through the holes and the cracks where you thought you let it slip away

**Author's Note:**

> ... So. I've been wanting to write this thing for a very long time if anything because I almost never see addressed the fact that poor Jaime's behavior *is* also influenced by a shitload of trauma he does an admirable job of compartmentalizing, and I should probably not get started on the Cersei-related part of this because I think everyone might have guessed where I'm going here (as in: he has to come to terms with how unhealthy it was. Sorry not sorry). And it *did* fit with J/B week day two's prompt - _gold_ \- so here we go, have fic number two.
> 
>  **Extra warnings** : Jaime's usually my favorite asoiaf POV to write because I tend to have a lot of fun when I write him. This was the one time I really didn't have fun whatsoever /o\, so make of that what you will, but like let's just say this is really not a lighthearted fic and... please heed the tags and if anything listed in there because I didn't go easy on it especially when it comes to the self-loathing spiral part of it. Also, these people live in fictional middle ages so I tried to keep the language as appropriate as possible but mind that none of them are actual psychologists or anything so don't expect modern-terms discussions of above tagged issues. Tldr: Jaime has Issues with the capital I and I tried to address it as realistically as I possibly could. Hopefully I succeeded.
> 
> In conclusion: the characters all belong to GRRM of course, nothing is mine except the plot (what a twist), the title is from a John Hiatt song and endless thanks to tumblr user robb-greyjoy for looking this over and making sure I wasn't writing you a psychology textbook in disguise. *saunters vaguely back downwards*

Maybe, he will think _later_ , he should have kept his mouth shut.

But the moment the wildling leader – right, _Tormund_ , that was the name – asks him why the hell does everyone call him _Kingslayer_ and he doesn’t sound like he’s judging him already for it, Jaime’s first instinct is asking him, _why, don’t you know already_? But no, it’s obvious he doesn’t know.

Neither do all the other wildlings around their table, where Jaime went to sit because Brienne is off to the Vale with the Lady Sansa and won’t be back for a while, and everyone from the southern side of the Wall obviously doesn’t appreciate him being around their lot.

For a moment, Jaime considers pretending he hasn’t heard.

But – the man seems interested in hearing it. That’d be the first person in his entire life who actually wasn’t judging him pre-emptively before hearing that story.

That’s probably why he opens his mouth and tells the entire story, not going into details as much as he had with Brienne back then, but enough that they might get the gist.

He doesn’t know what to expect as he shrugs towards the end of it and tells them that he stabbed the mad bastard in the back, thus finishing his shortened but truthful tale.

Surely not Tormund staring at him with the face of a very perplexed man and asking, “And people _insult_ you for that?”

“What?”

“It seems t’me that your kneeler crowd thinks you’re somehow dishonorable for havin’ killed an insane man who would have killed thousands of others if you hadn’t done so. Why would they?”

Jaime sighs. “No one knows _why_ I did it.”

“ _What_? Why wouldn’t they know?”

“… No one asked and – _people_ assumed I just, had shit for honor, I guess.” He takes a sip of his ale, mostly to have an excuse to _not_ look at Tormund. He hates discussing this. He really _hates_ –

“ _No one asked_?” Some other wildling asks, sounding equally shocked by Jaime’s admission.

“They didn’t,” Jaime shrugs.

“You kneelers are a bunch o’ idiots,” Tormund mutters. “Not _you_ , I guess.”

“A _bunch of idiots_?”

“No one would _not ask_ why you’d do somethin’ like that, _Ser_. Or whatever it is you call y’rself. And what’s this idiocy that if someone’s unfit to be in charge he _has_ to stay in charge ‘cause he’s a _king_ or whatever? Your uses seemed strange ‘nough when Snow was telling us ‘bout them, but this really is even more fucking stupid than treatin’ someone worse ‘cause their parents weren’t married.”

Which is – something Jaime cannot really argue on, he thinks. A lot of things _they_ do on the southern side of the Wall are entirely idiotic, he has to admit. Hasn’t he thought the same for a very long time, anyhow?

“Well, thank you,” Jaime says. “You might be the first one to be of that opinion. Not counting the lady of Tarth, but she wasn’t so open-minded when she learned.”

“She seems plenty _open-minded_ when it comes to you,” Tormund snorts, but then Jaime can see that he’s thought of _something_ and isn’t smiling anymore. “Just you wait a moment. How old did you say you were when you took your vows or whatever’s that you did?”

“Five and ten,” Jaime shrugs. “I killed Aerys at seven and ten, if that was what you wanted to ask. What?”

Suddenly, _the entire_ table is looking at him… weirdly.

“ _Five and ten_ ,” one of Tormund’s lieutenants, or whatever these people consider themselves, repeats.

“… Yes?” Jaime asks, not getting what they’re aiming at.

“Isn’t that a wee bit _too young_ for someone to be guarding a king or anythin’?” Says the man sitting on Tormund’s left – gods, that one was actually somewhat important. What was the name? Soren? Probably.

Jaime shrugs. “I guess. _Now_. Then, I just – I wanted to be a knight. It was the highest honor any knight could think of. I’d – I’d serve with my mentor.” _Wouldn’t Arthur be unhappy of seeing me thus_. “It sounded like a plan. And – I did it for love, too.”

He didn’t want to go _there_ – he hasn’t thought of Cersei in a long time and honestly, the only thing he feels when he recalls having burned her thrice-darned letter is relief. He couldn’t have protected her and he didn’t – he didn’t even want to go back to King’s Landing. Whatever happens to her, she made it so that it wouldn’t be his business the moment she decided he lost his cock along with his thrice-darned right hand.

Still, there’s a reason why he doesn’t like to even think about her these days.

“For _love_.”

“Aye,” Tormund replies, “I guess that’s why your kneeler crowd also whispers about you fucking your sister, isn’t it?”

“I see that my kneeler crowd likes to _talk_ ,” Jaime groans. “Anyway, as if no one knows. Yes, I did. I mean, I loved her.”

“ _Ser_ , not that many news from _that_ far south ever reach us,” Soren says, “but wasn’t your sister somewhat behind _Lord Stark’s_ death, never mind that everyone who’s ever arrived here from the south talks of her like a proper tyrant?”

Jaime _winces_. He can’t even deny that. And they _are_ being reached by a fair amount of southerners who’d rather fight wights with them than die of hunger in King’s Landing, these days.

“I _loved_ her, if you haven’t heard. It’s – complicated now, but I don’t think there are many choices to be had even if I still did. Anyway, our father was Hand of the King. She said that if I took the white we could always be together. It made sense. It was what made me decide, I suppose. Or maybe it was serving with my mentor. However it was, _fifteen_ wasn’t apparently too young.”

On one side, he’s kind of expecting them to look at him somewhat _wrong_ now that he’s pretty much admitted he was in love with his twin.

Instead – instead they’re _not_. At least, Tormund is looking as if the more Jaime speaks the less he understands his people’s customs, some of the others including Soren look kind of disturbed and others still don’t seem too impressed either way, but no one is looking at him in _disgust._

Jaime has a feeling that fighting these people for such a long time was a wrong idea, since they all seem fairly more reasonable than most he knows, even if he really wishes they’d _stop_ asking questions.

“I’d argue,” one of the other men says, “that for such a job, it’s _entirely_ too young.”

He sighs. “I guess it was. I mean, I couldn’t even save the princess.”

“The – wait. The mother of _the other_ dragon? The one who came from the Stormlands?”

Jaime shrugs. “Yes. She – she was slaughtered along with her first child and – well, another child who wasn’t Aegon, I suppose. In – it wasn’t a quick or painless death. But I was keeping an eye on Aerys, and I didn’t _know_ , and – I suppose I was too young, after all.”

“Ser,” the wildling princess, what was her name, _Val_ , the one who hasn’t said a word until now, “just out of sheer curiosity, how many people did you say were in your _Kingsguard_?”

“Nine,” Jaime replies.

“And out of nine supposedly expert knights, _you_ were the only one keeping watch in that castle _during a war_?”

It’s not that Jaime never resented that, or never wished _any_ of the others had been there, true, but the way she’s putting it, as if it was entirely fucking idiotic that he might be –

He’s never actually thought about it in _those_ terms.

“… The others were needed elsewhere,” he replies, realizing how weak it sounds to his own ears.

“Was that Snow’s… _father_ who decided it? Well, the one he didn’t know was his father,” Tormund asks.

“Yes,” Jaime confirms.

“Sounds like a proper cunt,” Tormund shrugs.

“ _What_?”

“Who in the Seven Hells runs off with a girl when he’s already married, starts a war and leaves someone of _ten and seven_ to guard four people among which two children and a madman? If he wasn’t a cunt, then he was a fuckin’ idiot. _How_ the fuck were you supposed to be in two places at once?”

Jaime is –

Admittedly, completely without words.

“I – I just, I could have –”

“ _Been in two places at once_? When there was someone older than you in your same _guard_ who should’ve been in charge? Ser, sounds to me like you’re doin’ an excellent job of asking too much of y’rself.”

Jaime would like to reply. Really.

He drinks some ale instead.

Thing is – he knows Tormund’s objectively right.

But _why_ hasn’t he even put it in these terms until _now_? Why hasn’t he even thought to question it and maybe admitting that Rhaegar completely had it wrong instead of assuming that since _he_ was left there then _he_ should have found a way to guard the king and Elia and the children, too?

“Speakin’ of cunts, though,” Soren says, interrupting his train of thought, “I’m curious.”

“Regarding what?” Jaime asks, suddenly wishing he had sat _anywhere else_. He likes these people more than he likes most of _his own_ , but he doesn’t like where this conversation is heading.

“From what I hear your sister’s downright _terrible_. I mean, some of the commoners who arrived a week ago or so? They’ve got fairly horrid stories to tell when she’s concerned. _You_ saved a bunch o’ people from dyin’ and you’re feelin’ guilty for not saving three others when you _couldn’t’ve_ and it’s been years and you _still_ do. How exactly did the two of you _love_ each other when you’ve got bloody nothin’ in common, if you don’t mind me askin’?”

Jaime actually _does_ mind him asking.

He minds him _a lot_.

He’s this tempted to tell the man that it’s not his damned business and that he can fuck off, but then he raises his eyes from his ale and notices that _all_ the people around this table are looking at him as if they’re somehow _concerned_.

Why would they be?

“I – I don’t, but – never mind. We’re twins,” he says, but then notices it’s not making it _obviously_ clearer. “I mean. We look alike. We always did. And – we were two halves of a whole,” he says, longingly. If only –

 _If only_ , he thinks, looking at his useless golden hand.

“I mean, we came into the world together. And we should have left together, I guess, but that’s not going to happen for sure.”

“That’s – an interesting way of lookin’ at _that_ ,” Tormund says. “Did you come up with it?”

“No,” Jaime shrugs. “She did. She – she kind of always said that. Why are you all looking at me as if I have grayscale?”

“Would it be too nosy to ask you _why_ you’re not going to die with her, other than the obvious reasons?” The princess asks.

“The – obvious reasons?”

She rolls her eyes. “You’re wearing a Stark cloak. The entire bloody castle knows you and _lady Brienne_ rescued Sansa Stark and brought her here when your sister has a bounty on her head. Your _king_ – the one we’re all servin’ anyhow – has pardoned you, so I suppose bein’ a decent person trumped your other feelings on the matter. _These_ are the obvious reasons.”

Jaime sighs. “What do you see on my darned right arm?”

“A _gold_ hand?”

“It was my sword hand,” he sighs. “I don’t think I was her mirror anymore,” he admits. “And – we obviously wanted different things. I guess I hadn’t realized how much until then.” _And I was faithful to her and she was not_ , he doesn’t add, but he’ll be damned before he touches that subject. “So, does this answer your question? Yes, I loved her. Yes, I was the father of her children. _Yes_ , the entire room of kneelers behind us knows, which is also why they don’t like me that much, I suppose.”

“Do those children _know_ you’re –” The princess starts.

Jaime laughs before she can finish.

“Of course not. She didn’t even let me near any of them because someone might have suspected who _really_ fathered them. I hope they _never_ know, the two I have left. They deserve better than – _what in the Seven Hells_?”

The table isn’t looking at him as if he has grayscale, now.

The table is looking at him as if he was the goddamned Night King himself.

“What’s _wrong_ with you all?” He asks.

He’s honestly not too reassured when they all look at each other. One of them whispers something to Val, who whispers something to another again, was the name Devyn or _something_ of the kind, until Tormund shakes his head and turns to look at him. “It’s not ‘bout _us_. I think we’re all in awe you’re indeed _not_ in King’s Landing terrorizing the smallfolk, I guess.”

“ _What_?”

“Mostly,” Val says, “I’m surprised you think you have _anything_ in common with your sister.”

“I – I don’t know if you’re aware that I’ve done plenty of horrible things, too,” he tries to say. “I’m not some kind of septon.”

“No one’s sayin’ that, and believe me, northerners like to talk about you in terms that aren’t flatterin’, indeed,” Tormund agrees, “but – in all honesty, Ser, seems fairly logical to _me_ that you’d solve y’r problems pushing children out of windows.”

Jaime _grimaces_ at first, but then –

“What?”

“If whatever you do’s met with violence, stands to reason that’s how you’d react,” Tormund goes on. “But never mind _that_. Val’s got a right to say what she says, but – doesn’t sound to _me_ like your sister… loved you as much as you did _her_ ,” he says, and –

 _What – what has he even just implied_?

“I – I’m sure she did,” Jaime stammers, “ _how_ would you even –”

“Never mind that seems to me like y’re really _not_ like her at all, when it comes to your charming personality, but where I come from, if someone _loves_ somebody else, they want them to live on. Not to _die with them_.”

Jaime is _really_ glad he had been finishing his ale as Tormund said it, or he would have probably just gaped at him without being able to reply.

Admittedly, it did seem like a romantic notion. It still does. “It just – it seemed right that we should leave the world the way we came in it,” he says, but it sounds weak to his own ears.

“So what, neither of you would _exist_ beyond th’ other?” Val asks. “That still doesn’t sound _right_ to me. If I loved someone I wouldn’t want them to be _the same as me_. Or to _die with me_. What kind of selfish cunt would I be if I didn’t want them to live on?”

Put it like _this_ –

“Wait, didn’t you say she _always_ said that?”

“… Yes?” Gods, he doesn’t know if he wants to keep on having this conversation or not. On one side, he’d just rather _not_ , on the other – he kind of wants to see where they’re all headed. “I – I really can’t remember the first time I heard it,” he admits, realizing that _he doesn’t_.

Tormund looks visibly disturbed. Val does, too. Everyone else – they’re still looking at him as if he was some kind of wight.

“You _don’t remember it_ ,” Tormund repeats.

“… No?”

“And she _didn’t want you to marry anyone else_ , I guess,” Val says.

“I didn’t want her to marry anyone else, either,” Jaime replies.

“Did you tell her to become a septa so that she wouldn’t have to?” Val asks back, and –

“No,” Jaime replies at once, “of course I wouldn’t –”

“Then how is it the same when she pretty much told you to _take the white_ or whatever you said you southrons do, so that _you’d always be together_?”

It’s –

It’s _not_ the same, he has to admit to himself.

Shit. He never – he never actually considered that. Not at all. He wants to think they’re exaggerating and that they can’t know, they weren’t _there_ , they never were on the receiving end of her kisses or her touches or her stares, but –

But why hearing it from the outside, they all look like _they’re sorry for him_?

“I wouldn’t have done that if I didn’t want to,” he finally settles on.

He can see that Tormund is _itching_ to ask him something else, but then he shakes his head and decides not to.

Jaime isn’t sure he wants to know _what_ was it that he decided against sharing.

“All the same,” he says, “it seems t’me that on one side someone should’ve asked you _why_ you killed your bloody mad king. On the other, that really don’t sound like _love_ to me.”

“It – it wasn’t – it wasn’t something _others_ were supposed to understand,” Jaime snaps back.

“Hm,” Tormund hums, “and was that _your_ way to put it?”

“What –” Jaime starts, and then realizes that _no_ , that was what _Cersei_ said the first time they kissed. He closes his mouth, opens it again, closes it. Shit. “It was complicated,” he finally says, fully realizing that it sounded very, very weak.

“If you say so,” Tormund says, sounding absolutely not convinced. “Still, I’d ask myself what _complicated_ might’ve stood for, if I were you.”

And then he thankfully, _thankfully_ goes back to his food and drops the subject.

No one else picks it back up.

But Jaime is sure at least a few of them look at him with very badly hidden pity, and others as if they’re somewhat in awe, and some others as if they’re still _at least_ disturbed.

 _Why_?

\--

Thing is – he never actually _thought_ about it.

 _I’d ask myself what_ complicated _might’ve stood for, if I were you._

He could, sure, but – where the hell does he even begin? When he was with Cersei, things were _never_ complicated. It just – was the way it was. It never _didn’t_ make sense. It _always_ felt right that she was his other half. They looked alike, and they spent all their time together, and _she always said so_ , why wouldn’t that be true?

Of course, _now_ – now it’s not true anymore, but then again now he doesn’t have a bloody hand anymore, does he?

And yet –

If it was _so_ easy, why did he tell Tormund it was complicated?

Because he kept on asking if what just came out of his mouth was what _he_ came up with, or what _Cersei_ came up with.

Thing is –

He always _went along_ with what _she_ said, because she _knew_ , she sounded so sure of it, and so she must have been right.

He never even questioned it.

It’s not as if he ever had to. It’s not as if they ever argued, when the subject wasn’t Tyrion, and even then she always ended up letting it go and he just assumed she’d see it one day, because they were the same, and she _would_ understand that she was wrong, and look at how well that went, given that in the end Cersei only wanted Tyrion dead and she has a bounty on his head, too, and _right,_ their father also lost his life throughout that goddamned ordeal.

He _assumed_.

Wrongly.

He shudders as he changes slowly and painstakingly into his night clothes – he won’t certainly call a squire to do _that_ – and he keeps on thinking about it throughout the entire thing and as he heads to bed (it’s not as grand as the one in the Lord Commander’s chamber, nor the room as large, but like hell he’ll look at gift horses in the mouth, not when it’s a miracle not many people actually asked for his head the moment it turned out he wanted to defect to the Stark side), and he goes to sleep thinking of how absolutely, _entirely_ sensed did all of _that_ sound when it left Cersei’s perfectly shaped, rose-colored lips and why it doesn’t sound as _such_ now.

He goes to sleep.

\--

He dreams he’s too late to find out about the wildfire, and that Aerys laughs next to him as King’s Landing burns.

The next morning, he feels too sick to break his fast.

\--

“You were about to tell me something, at dinner,” he tells Tormund after finding him in the practice yard not long later.

“What?”

“Yesterday. You were about to tell me something. And then you didn’t. Why?”

“Because,” Tormund says, “it seemed to me like you weren’t enjoying questions that were gettin’ a tad too personal, and I might be part of the free folk and you consider us brutes, but I don’t like to ask that kind of thing in public if I’m not sure it’ll be well-received.”

… Fair, Jaime thinks, and more considerate than anyone might ever be with _him_.

“Fine. I want to know.”

“You _do_?”

“Yes. I’ve never ran from anything in my entire bloody life, I won’t run from your words.”

“Why, you’ve got a temper. Very well. The question I wanted to ask you was, _you said you wanted to, but did you, or did she want you to_. But you know how it sounds from listenin’ to your story?”

“How does it sound?”

“Like your sister loved _herself_ a wee bit too much and decided that she should love _you_ because you looked like her. I mean, there’s a lot of things in y’r story that sound fuckin’ creepy, but who even has three children with someone they love and _doesn’t let ‘em be near those children at all_?”

The first thing he wants to reply is, _we’d have risked too much_.

But –

That was what _Cersei_ said, wasn’t it?”

“I –”

“Lannister, consider it. Did you _want_ them?”

“I – it was her decision,” he says, “but – I’d have liked to. I – I kind of tried to make up for it some after I lost the hand, but –”

“But what?”

“She sent me to Riverrun. She – she didn’t like it.”

“Lannister, I’m not sayin’ it sounds like your sister wanted children who’d look like _her_ and you were willing and available to give them to her, but that’s how it’d sound to _me_.”

 _No_ , Jaime thinks. It couldn’t –

She _wouldn’t_. “No,” he protests, “that – that couldn’t have been. She always said she couldn’t be with anyone else or want anyone else in her bed, that she felt complete with me, I’m –”, and then he stops, because –

Because –

“What,” Tormund says, “did she only have you in your bed?”

“No,” he sighs. He regrets having asked. He –

“How about _you_?”

Jaime resolutely does _not_ think of the times, in these last few months, in which he has entertained the notion that if he dared asking Brienne, she _might_ accept to be in it, and of how he hasn’t dreamed of Cersei’s green eyes for a while but of a pair of blue ones instead. And anyway, they would not count, because it’s not about now. It’s about _then_.

“Yes,” he finally says. “She – she’s been the only one. For now, at least.”

He had thought it would be hard to make the wildling man look _thoroughly_ disturbed at some mere remark, but –

But apparently, he’s managed it. “What?” He asks, after a long silence.

“Lannister, I think you really need to consider that you might’ve deserved a lot better than _that_. Beg your pardon, I’ve got to talk with our gracious former Lord _Snow_ ,” he smirks. “But let me just ask you one last thing and then I’ll leave for good. If things got bad ‘tween the two o’ you when you lost that hand, isn’t it a bit too little, if she loved you that much? I’ve known people who stayed with their men or women until they died, and they had lost plenty more than one hand. Think ‘bout it,” he adds, and then he heads for what used to be Ned Stark’s solar, Jaime supposes.

That’s not his problem.

His problem is – of course Tormund is wrong. There’s just no way. He – he hasn’t seen how it was when they were _living_ it. He hasn’t been there. He hasn’t looked at his sister the way she looked at him and so, _what does he know_ –

But –

 _Isn’t it a bit too little_?

Hadn’t – hadn’t he thought that, too? Hadn’t he thought, _is that all there was to me_?

Hadn’t he felt betrayed when he found out that she _would_ cower at the sight of his maimed wrist or when Tyrion told him she had been with others without telling him at any point?

Hasn’t –

Hasn’t he told Tormund and the others _only things_ she _had said about their relationship because he couldn’t come up with better ways to put them?_

Gods, he thinks, _gods_ , it can’t be.

It _can’t be_.

At least in the beginning, she _must_ have loved him. She _must have_ , because there couldn’t be any other reason she would consider herself whole just with him nor the contrary, there couldn’t be any other reason for the way they always felt towards each other since he can even remember –

Except –

 _Maybe she loved herself a wee bit too much_.

He shakes his head, grabs a sword and goes to find _anyone_ who’ll spar with him. Until Brienne is back, he has to make do – good thing she should be in a few days.

\--

Of course, not many of the noblemen around would like to fight _him_ , which is how he spends the day crossing swords with half of the green boys in need of training (and half of the time they can hold their own against him – gods, he really needs to get better _soon_ ) and the other half with a few of those wildlings from yesterday, who instead have no issues with going down hard on him, but _that_ is good – at least he only has to worry about standing back up every time they send him blows hard enough to send him to his knees for a good part of the afternoon.

“For bein’ one-handed and _right_ -handed, you put up a decent fight,” Soren tells him, sort of apologetically, as Jaime calls it a day and stands up – he feels completely hammered, but at least he distracted himself from yesterday’s drama and that’s good enough for him.

“ _Decent_ is not what I’m aiming for,” Jaime groans, “but thank you nonetheless.”

The man nods at him and leaves him be.

It’s late in the afternoon – soon dinner will be served, but even if he’s fought people off the entire day, he doesn’t feel like eating nor like having _any_ conversation, with either wildlings or not.

Gods, he hadn’t realized that with Brienne momentarily gone, he wouldn’t have anyone to talk to who wasn’t going to think _Kingslayer_ first and… well, anything else later. And if his only alternative to avoid judging stares is Tormund Giantsbane and his merry band of wildlings, he’d rather not.

These are the moments when he misses Tyrion, he thinks. Gods, he _does_ , and he wishes he could talk to him again and maybe smooth things out, because the way they parted wasn’t how he thought they would or should, and Tyrion _was_ right in hating him because didn’t Jaime help their father ruin his life _and_ that poor girl’s, but –

It was just after Aerys, and he hadn’t admittedly found the strength to oppose it, and he _did_ try to convince himself his father was eventually right even if now he _knows_ he wasn’t, same as his father was wrong about a great lot of other things.

After all, didn’t Elia and the children die _because of him_?

Admittedly, he had just – decided to stop caring. Because if he did –

 _This wasn’t what I wanted_ , he remembers thinking when he saw those poor children presented to the new king on that horrid red velvet. _I didn’t swear any oaths for this. I didn’t want it. I should have prevented it. I –_

He shakes his head – shit, there’s a goddamned reason he _decided to stop caring_ , back in the day, and he can’t start doing it now. He can’t. Or he’ll think of all the times Tyrion asked him _why_ Cersei was horrible to _him_ but not to Jaime, and he’ll realize that every time his answer was _always_ something his sister said first to him somewhat, and –

He storms back upstairs, takes off his clothes, throws himself under the covers and closes his eyes. Maybe he’ll pass out from tiredness and he’ll forget about this.

\--

Except that then he wakes up _four_ goddamned times.

All of them, his brow is clotted in cold sweat.

The first time, he failed to kill Aerys.

The second, Brienne failed to kill that monstrosity that once was Catelyn Stark.

The third, it was just that poor girl Tysha with her clothes covered in blood asking, _how could you_?

In the fourth, Bran Stark is sending him a helpless, betrayed look as he falls down from that tower, and he wakes up feeling like he could fucking throw up.

He doesn’t go back to sleep.

\--

The next morning, as he finds a spot in the main hall to break his fast, he can feel people moving out of his way the moment he crosses it – good. It probably shows he’s of a foul mood. Good riddance.

He’s forcing himself to eat some porridge when he hears it.

“Do you think we should warn the king and the lady?” Some northern asshole says. “I mean, we’re talking about the _Kingslayer_ here, who knows if he’s planning on –”

 _Everyone_ hears it when he slams his thrice-fucked golden hand on the table – it makes so much noise that the entire room goes silent. Good thing _the king_ isn’t here.

He stands up and tries to remember who the hell was that asshole – right. Lord Ryswell. Who was of course talking to that viper that’s his sister, too bad that their support can’t be spat upon, not when they have to keep the North united.

“Lord Ryswell,” he says, making sure that everyone can hear how much he’s displeased, “I _slayed my king_ for reasons I’m not owed to tell you, but it should suffice to know that I did it because he was a fucking insane madman who was going to be the death of anyone around him should he have lived any longer, _including_ anyone who might have deposed him. Given that _Jon Snow_ is neither insane nor showing signs of incoming madness nor _planning to blow Winterfell up with fucking wildfire_ , you can rest assured I am not planning to end his life _once again_ and that I’m merely having a fucking bad day, no thanks to you.”

Then he punches the table again – his food crashes to the ground, but he’s not even hungry anymore – and he storms out of the room.

He’s aware that people will most likely assume he’s losing his wits, but _fucking let them_.

He’s really fucking _done_ with people whispering behind his back as if he wasn’t _right there_ , damn it.

\--

He’s also not surprised when Jon Snow actually comes to find him later as he’s hacking at a practice dummy in the yard.

“I imagine it’s about this morning,” Jaime sighs.

“Sort of,” Jon replies, “but – Ser, are you sure you’re well?”

“My night could have been better,” Jaime replies. “I lost it with Ryswell, but it won’t happen again.”

Snow shrugs, as if it’s no matter to him one way or the other. “Ser, Ryswell is around because of necessity, and he hasn’t forsaken his family to _bring my sister back to Winterfell_ nor showed plainly that they regret what happened to my brother and that they want to make up for it. People have been whispering behind my back for other reasons for a very long time. I’m not exiling you back to King’s Landing for _that_.”

Jaime nods, and he almost lets the lad go, but –

Fuck it.

“Your Grace,” he says.

“Please _don’t_ ,” Jon groans.

“Very well. I know you don’t like to breach _that_ subject, so let me just tell you _one_ thing. I’ve been here for long enough and whatever people whisper behind your back, I’m sure you’re the kind of person your _father_ would have been proud of, and _your other one_ could only have dreamed of being. And that’s all I have to say on the subject. I doubt you have to worry that I might be what ends your life.”

“… Thank you,” Jon says, sounding _actually_ sort of touched, and Jaime nods at him as he leaves.

The lad probably deserved to hear it.

\--

No one sits next to him at dinner, of course, but no one dares discussing his obvious bad mood.

He’s been thinking of _what_ he always used to say about himself and Cersei, at least in his own head.

 _If I were a woman, I’d be her_ , he used to think.

But hasn’t Cersei _always_ said, since he could remember, _if I were a man, I’d be you?_

Wasn’t what she said when they would swap their clothing and no one would notice?

 _Would_ she have been _him_?

He thinks, _would she have waited for Ned Stark to claim that throne_?

No. He knows she wouldn’t. Not when she sacrificed everything including her son’s happiness to sit on that fucking uncomfortable iron trap on which Jaime sat for a very short time back in the day, and on which he’d never, _ever_ want to sit again.

No. No, she wouldn’t have been him.

Would _he_ have been her, though?

He would have looked like her, sure, but –

_Would I have let Joffrey turn into that little monster without a shred of honor?_

_Would I have never let her see our children if not from afar?_

_Would I have treated our brother like dirt?_

That’s –

That’s _not_ what he has done. Or what he would have. He _knows_ he wouldn’t have.

But then –

Then _she wouldn’t have been him, and he wouldn’t have been her._

Then again, the reverse is valid. If they were fundamentally different like _that_ , why would she tell him that _they were the same_?

Or better, why would she have told him _since he could remember_?

He stares down at his food. It’s mostly uneaten.

“Ser?”

He jerks ever so slightly and turns to his left. There’s – oh. Sansa’s friend. The one they forced to marry Ramsay Bolton – the one _Cersei_ and Littlefinger and _his father_ sent to replace Arya after months in one of Baelish’s brothels. She looks good enough now, never mind the frostbite on her nose, and suddenly he feels like he wants to cry. _How_ many people has his family ended up hurting during this war?

“Can I help you?” He asks.

“No, but – most of the others are finished. You were staring at your food and the maids will be here to clean up soon, are you well?”

Gods, _his father and Cersei and Baelish_ sent her to be married to a fucking monster and the gods know how she even escaped (he knows it has something to do with Theon Greyjoy but he hasn’t seen the man since he arrived here even if he knows he’s around, so he has no idea), and she’s inquiring after _his_ health?

“It’s – it’s been a bad night,” he blurts. “I’m all right. You don’t need to worry.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” she says, and –

“ _How_ can you be?” He asks without being able to stop himself.

“Why?”

“I – _my father_ and my sister sent you here as a replacement for Arya Stark, and you only ever ended up in that position because of their plotting, and – how can you _care_ how I’m doing?”

She stares at him for a moment, then shakes her head and smiles ever so slightly.

“Ser, that was _your family_. Not _you_. You brought Sansa back here and maybe not everyone knows _how_ , but she told – me, and Jon, and the people who _should_ know. And I couldn’t believe I’d see her again in my entire life, and – it’s been good for me. I would never want anyone who kept her alive and sacrificed something to make it so to suffer. Have a good night,” she tells him, and then she turns her back on him and leaves the room.

He finishes his food without even thinking about _anything else_ except chewing and swallowing lest he ends up doing something very stupid like crying over it, and heads back upstairs as soon as he’s finished.

He hopes he falls asleep out of exhaustion, but no, he can’t, and that question comes back –

_Why would she have told him since he could remember?_

And he decides he doesn’t want to know.

He doesn’t.

He doesn’t, because the only answer he has for it is, _she never even considered me as anything but_ her _male counterpart_ , and –

It doesn’t take a wildling to realize that no, that’s not _love_ in any way, shape or form.

Or at least, not for _him._ Or, not the kind of love he had for her.

\--

He wakes up remembering only the last few minutes of his dream.

In which Cersei was accusing him of leaving her to die just when she needed him most.

He throws up in his chamber pot and feels cold for the rest of the damned night, and he doesn’t go back to sleep, either.

\--

And then, a raven reaches them confirming that Brienne and Sansa Stark are arriving tomorrow at latest, bringing a good number of Vale men with.

The king holds a council, figuring they should have clear ideas when the Vale lords arrive, and Jaime has to be on it because _he_ did say he would tell them as much as he could about what numbers does the Lannister army have or what would his sister plan and so on, but for the first half hour of it or so he can’t concentrate – they discuss Asha Greyjoy, Stannis Baratheon’s raven from the Stormlands where he’s treating with Jon Connington (who knew the man was even alive?) who says he has with him Rhaegar’s second son (even if that’s true, Jaime thinks, it doesn’t mean _he_ had a hand in saving him) and some more, but he can only think, _if I were a woman and I was her, would I be planning to tell the truth now?_

Of course he wouldn’t.

But he’s not _her_.

They did establish that, after all.

Then Jon asks him what does he think Cersei might do and he replies truthfully – _whatever she thinks will keep her on the throne_. He tells them what numbers his army had back when he left it, he assures them that there’s no one in King’s Landing who has _his_ experience leading one, he says he knows nothing about the Faith’s army right now but he would bet money that they’ll turn on her the moment it’s convenient, gives his honest opinions (none of them flattering) on the people in the small council right now –

That is, until _of course_ Lady Dustin has to share her opinion.

“Ser,” she says, “that all sounds very true, but how do we know you’re _not_ doing her bidding?”

“How – _I beg your pardon_?”

She shrugs. “You’re obviously nervous. You can’t seem to look at anyone in the face as you share your information. And your hand is trembling. One would think you aren’t necessarily telling the truth.”

 _What in the Seven Hells_ , he wants to scream. Well, all right, of course she’s not wrong, but it’s not because he’s lying.

It’s because with every word he says he can hear Cersei asking him if he only lost a hand or his wits or _worse_ , and he can see her disappointed face as she left him in the Lord Commander’s chambers as she called him old and useless and crippled, and he wants to _vomit_ and he wants to see her again just to ask her, _why would you do this to me when you were supposed to_ love _me_ _and when I loved_ you _with everything I had to give_ , and –

“My lady,” he spits, “I’ve had a few bad nights. Lack of sleep will do this to a man. I might not be looking at you all, but it’s because I know you’d be doubtful and I honestly cannot deal with your _doubting_. I left my army as I was about to go back to King’s Landing. I brought you back your Lord’s daughter, I _bent the knee_ to the king _you_ are supporting, if I went back to King’s Landing Cersei would kill me with her bare hands and at this point even if I was lying, it wouldn’t be worth it. I’m not lying to you.” He meets her stare, because fuck that, if she thinks he’s lying she should better hold it when she says it. “I haven’t,” he says, “given the lady Brienne _a sword made of your former Lord’s Valyrian steel_ in order to defend _said lord’s daughter_ just because I felt like it, my lady.”

For a moment, she looks like she will contest it.

Then –

“I apologize,” she spits out.

 _Good_ , he thinks. Let her fucking apologize.

Still, as he leaves the room, he can’t help notice she was right. His left hand is shaking so hard he has to close it into a fist and breathe for some time in order to keep it down.

 _What the fuck is happening to me_ , he thinks, and he decides he doesn’t want to know the answer.

\--

The next morning, he has barely slept, and only dreaming of Tyrion’s destroyed, disappointed face as Jaime told him the truth about Tysha hasn’t helped his mood either.

Still, he’s in the yard when Sansa and Brienne arrive with the rest of the army they brought with. They both look fairly better than _him_ – Sansa is radiant in her winter cloak and with her now bright red hair blazing under the pale northern sun, free of that dark dye. Brienne’s not looking any prettier than she usually is, not with her ruined cheek and the rope burn around her neck still visible, but she’s holding her back straight and her head high and she looks like someone who knows their mission went over well and knows she’s done her job right, and she looks so _right_ in her place as Sansa’s sword, and he’s happy that she does.

Really. At least one of them should be.

He can’t help smiling ever so slightly as Jon hugs his sister, and he can’t help noticing that not many of the attending people spare Brienne a glance –

Until she looks at him, and for a moment she seems relieved to see him standing, but then –

She stalks towards where he is and takes a good look at him, and the fact that she is slightly taller _does_ make him feel unreasonably small as she does, even if not in a bad way. At least she’s looking like she _cares_.

“Jaime,” she says, and the fact that she’s calling him _just_ by name in public should testify to how worried she must be, “what’s wrong?”

Shit.

 _What’s wrong_. She hasn’t even thought of asking whether something _is_ wrong. It must be obvious that something _is_ , right?

“I – nothing,” he lies.

She sends him a stare that’s so _not_ impressed, he can’t help cringing. She shakes her head, grabs him by the arm and leads it somewhere without _that many people_ – good thing that.

“Jaime Lannister,” she says, “as you’re so fond of reminding me when it comes to how much you didn’t deserve it, I would have died if it had meant not killing you. I didn’t do it so that you would openly lie about how wrong something is with you, because there’s no way it’s _nothing_.”

“It’s just –” He starts, not even knowing how to put it. “I’ve been thinking. About some things I hadn’t thought about for a long time. And I’ve been sleeping poorly. But I swear, that’s about it,” he says, and doesn’t add, _maybe now that you’re back and I don’t have only myself to discuss with, it will go away_.

She doesn’t look wholly convinced, but gives him a curt nod and seems to accept the answer.

“Very well, but – however things shape up to be, we will have to fight a war soon,” she sighs. “You should be rested for it.”

“Well,” he says, “maybe if _you_ spar with me today rather than green boys maybe I’ll have a chance in the Seven Hells of surviving it.”

“Rather than _green boys_?”

He shrugs. “I’m still a kingslayer for most of the people in here. The green boys are the only one in a line to actually fight me, as pathetic as it sounds.”

She snorts. “Then get ready, I can meet you in one hour at latest.”

 _Yes_ , he thinks, _yes_ , _that will do._

She’s there in one hour.

\--

Thing is, fighting _her_ is always a good thing for his mood at any point because she doesn’t try to make things too easy for him but she also doesn’t try to disarm him – she knows he wants to practice and she’s more than glad to drag things along until he’s exhausted and she pretends to make the fight a tie because the both of them knew she’d win if she only tried. And he doesn’t end their sparring feeling like he’s _never_ going to be as good as he used to if he’s fighting her, which is why when they call it a day he feels good rather than still restless – gods, next time he’s going to ask to go with her even if setting foot outside the North is _not_ a very good idea right now.

Especially because Cersei _does_ want his head, regardless of what Lady Dustin thinks.

That is, until they’re putting their swords away and someone whose voice Jaime doesn’t even recognize says, very clearly, “I should hope my lady knows what she’s doing, who knows who’s the next person he’s going to turn against.”

He didn’t have the sword inside the scabbard, yet.

Three days ago, maybe he’d have punched the man – it’s some relative of Arnolf Karstark’s, who really should have kept his mouth shut given how Jaime’s been told Stannis dealt with Lord Arnolf.

Now, though –

He lets the sword fall to the ground as he takes in the sentence, and he can only think, _how can he assume I’d ever harm_ her _, is it what the realm really thinks of me? Just for Aerys?_ , but then –

“My Lord,” Brienne snaps angrily, “ _Ser Jaime_ here has turned against less people than you might think and I’m sure he would not turn against _me_. I would appreciate it if you kept such remarks for yourself.”

Gods. She sounds so _sure_. The man mutters some apology and runs away, smart thinking, and then Brienne turns back to him and – her big blue eyes are _really_ worried at this point.

“Jaime, _what’s wrong_?”

“I – why?”

She grabs his wrists. _Both_ of them were shaking wildly and only stops as she grips them – _gently_ , he realizes. But firmly.

“This – was that because of what he said?”

He wishes it was – it never used to bother him before. “I – maybe. I don’t know. I wouldn’t have cared before, but – never mind it. I will get used to it. Or they will get used to me,” he smiles, hoping she buys that it’s passed, whatever it was.

She obviously doesn’t, but lets his wrists go and for a moment he wants to tell her to take them back, and _why_?

“Fine,” she says. “But – take a bath or get some sleep. You really look terrible, ser.”

“I’ll try,” he sighs. “Thank you, by the way. I have a feeling defending my honor is a lost cause, but it’s appreciated.”

She smiles, ever so slightly. “Anytime.”

Thing is, he thinks as he watches her go, he knows that she _also_ slept terribly after killing Lady Stoneheart, for the first couple of weeks, but then one morning she told him that she didn’t regret it and that if she found Sansa she’d have known she was doing right by Lady Catelyn and not by what she had become, and that she didn’t regret doing it for _him_ , and since then, she hasn’t slept so badly anymore, and _something_ in her had shifted – before, he had seemed to overtly care about others’ opinions of how fit she might have been to be a knight or not, but in comparison to how much she used to clam up or flinch when the topic was mentioned back when they first met, now she doesn’t. It’s as if having had to face the horrible truth behind the fact that you can’t fulfill all the vows you swear but having found a way to still be true to the important ones has just made her stop caring about what most other people think, and she looks… more sure of herself, as if someone lifted a very heavy weight from her shoulders.

And he’s glad for it. He _really_ is.

At least one of them shouldn’t be miserable and should be able to get over the horrible things they had to do, especially when she’s really cut for being a knight, and he only ever made a mess of his chances at it.

So – patience if it’s not him – she deserves it more.

\--

That evening, she sits down with him, as she used to _before_ , and he doesn’t end up thinking of his sister or Aerys or anything else as he eats, though he notices the wildling table sending him… _relieved_ looks?

What the hell.

She tells him of the mission in the Vale, he _doesn’t_ tell her of what’s going on through his head lately and merely lets her talk. Gods, she _was_ cut for being a knight, he thinks, and from the way she reports the mission it’s obvious she knows it, too, and he feels horrible for having wished she had stayed behind just because _he_ would have had someone to talk to. As if she should stay back for _him_ – she already sacrificed too much for his sake, including _almost getting hanged_.

He’s starting to wonder if _he_ ’s somehow a curse for anyone he actually cares about.

“Jaime?”

“Sorry?”

“Are – you were staring into nothing for a moment, is everything all right?”

And she sounds concerned, damn it.

“Sure,” he lies. “I just – was thinking of something. It’s fine.”

 _It’s not,_ a part of him he’s ignored since he was seventeen says resolutely, but he silences it.

The last thing she needs is seeing that he might be crippled in other ways than lacking his right hand, at this point.

\--

That night, he doesn’t sleep either, but at least it’s nothing he wakes up screaming from, which is good because Brienne is sleeping in the next room over.

Still, _his mother_ asking him how could he fail his family so spectacularly isn’t anything he relished seeing either. His pillow is wet when he wakes up.

He resolutely ignores it, wipes at his eyes and stares at the ceiling for the next few hours, during which he can’t help thinking, _if that’s how you end up at the end of all things, maybe of course_ she _couldn’t love_ you _– she never was so fucking useless_.

\--

The next morning, it’s _obvious_ that she wants to ask him how he’s doing, but she doesn’t and merely tells him she’ll be in the yard in an hour.

He could kiss her for that, he thinks, and then goes to get his sword thinking to himself that he _won’t_ , because sure as hell she didn’t deserve to be saddled with him _before_ , and now –

He just hopes she never realizes how much it would have been a waste if she really had died for him – and he still can’t fucking believe she _would_ have.

 _Would Cersei have_ –

He doesn’t even finish that thought.

He knows she wouldn’t have. He thought she’d have wanted to die with him, but now, _now_ he can’t help thinking that maybe it was the other way around. Maybe, maybe she wanted _him_ to die with _her_ , and somehow the idea that he couldn’t live beyond her doesn’t sound so romantic or comforting anymore.

Well, he _is_ living beyond her _now_ , but –

Once, it seemed sensed. Why would he want to be without his other half? What would life even have to offer?

Now –

Now he thinks, _maybe she didn’t want me to have one_.

He throws up before going down to the yard. Brienne beats him _nicely_ as usual, but it’s obvious she’s noticing that his heart’s not in it.

Still, she doesn’t press and he’s grateful that she’s not trying to get it out of him at all costs. He doesn’t want her to know.

 _Gods_ , he doesn’t want her to, or she’d see _exactly_ how much she’s wasting her time. He’s _old_ , he’s crippled both inside and outside, he wasn’t even worth his family’s time since _most_ of them apparently only ever acted in ways that completely disregarded what he wanted, his reputation’s tarnished, no one is ever going to believe he killed Aerys for a valid reason or that he only ever wanted to be Arthur Dayne once upon a time, and she deserves so much better than him dragging her down –

But he’s also never been a very selfless person and if he thinks that he might actually let her see _how much_ he’s not worth it and let her go on her way, he feels like throwing up all over again because there’s literally no one else he can even stand to be near at this point, and –

And he doesn’t want her to know.

Even if gods, he knows she should.

\--

 _But if half of what I’ve done was because my sister somehow convinced me to,_ he asks himself as he tosses and turns in his bed later that night, _where the hell does that leave me?_

He knows where it leaves him.

It leaves him somewhere he _hates_ , because it means he’s actually never done anything out of _his_ own will except for going off with Arthur, fighting the Smiling Knight, killing Aerys and whatever happened after he lost the damned hand, or close to it.

He can’t –

He can’t have. It has to be false. It _has_ to be –

No. No, it’s _worse_ , because for how bad it could have gotten, he knew what he was doing. _She_ wasn’t telling him to push Bran Stark from that window and she wasn’t telling him to do a whole lot of other things he regrets in order to protect the both of them or his family or her or all of it at once, which he did because he chose to, but at the same time would he have done it if he even only suspected that everything Cersei might have cared about was loving _herself_ rather than _him_?

Given that she apparently had no use for him after he decided to try to be the person he wanted to be when he slew the Smiling Knight –

 _I’m such a fucking idiot_ , he thinks. _Tyrion was right all along and I never even doubted her once, and she didn’t even tell me she was with others even if she knew I’d have understood, and I’ve never even looked at anyone else because it just made sense the way_ she _said it._

And then he wonders why not one out of his relatives ever thought _him_ the smart one in between Tywin Lannister’s children.

\--

Good thing that at least he only has time for _that_ train of thought just during the night. It’s obvious that Brienne _knows_ something is amiss because she makes a point of sparring with him every day and to drag him around Winterfell when she can, and if she’s there he doesn’t have time to think about the horrible failure that his life turned out being, but if he ignores that little voice during the day, it catches up in the night.

By now, there isn’t _one_ night where Aerys doesn’t show up in his dreams, and if it’s not him it’s Rhaegar asking him _why_ his children are dead and he’s completely and utter unable to respond, or Arthur Dayne looking at him in disappointment, or Cersei’s look of disgust when she glanced at his right wrist, or how Stoneheart seemed to be sure that he deserved to die and _maybe he did_ , or his brother and mother’s sad eyes as they tell him he was such a disappointment, and sleeping badly _shows_.

He can barely eat without feeling like vomiting, a few times while sparring his sword literally falls off his hands for how much his left’s sweating and his right’s useless, his left hand shakes half of the time especially when he sits down to eat, he has to stop himself from flinching every damned time he hears a _kingslayer_ whispered somewhere in the room and it’s obvious that people are starting to think he’s going mad.

Maybe he is.

Fuck, he doesn’t know. He doesn’t know anymore.

But no one has time for _him_ and they have to worry about the war and Stannis coming back with Connington’s other dragon and _won’t that be hilarious_ , and Brienne is not only Sansa’s sword but she also has been teaching some of the green _girls_ around here to fight shall they need it, so she can’t trail him like a shadow as much as he selfishly kind of wants her to, but she’s kept him alive once and he can’t ask her to do it twice.

Still, he manages to pretend everything is either fine or more or less acceptable because he’s pretended he didn’t care about what people thought of him since he killed Aerys and he’s not going to let _anything_ fuck him over and give the assholes around him any satisfaction, or make them assume he actually feels guilty about it.

That is, until two things happen on the same day.

\--

First of all, Theon Greyjoy _finally_ appears from whichever room he had holed himself into and shows up for breakfast with Jeyne Poole apparently dragging him, and Jaime wants to recoil because now that he takes a good look at the man... _what_ has Ramsay Bolton done to him? He has seen the white hair, but he hadn’t noticed that he doesn’t have some fingers on his hands anymore and from the way he walks probably not even some toes, and he’s some ten years younger than Jaime is at least, and he looks – twenty years older than Jaime does now. Gods. That is, until he tells Jeyne something and Jaime realizes that Bolton broke some of his teeth, too.

Hells. _Someone else_ seems to have paid for their mistakes in spades, he thinks, and for a moment he feels very, very glad that at least he only has the missing hand to show for it, though he also feels a moment of admiration because _who_ manages to survive shit like that?

Anyway, Greyjoy shows up while everyone else is breaking their fast, and Jaime’s arriving just behind him.

He’s also late, because he’s barely slept tonight either – he woke up actually _thinking he was in King’s Landing_ for a good five minutes – and his left is shaking so hard he couldn’t tie the fucking golden hand to his wrist, and so he’s going without, which – he’d have rather avoided, but patience. He’ll live.

He passes the two of them as Greyjoy obviously stalls, and finds his usual table empty except for Brienne, and he sits down without saying a thing, hoping she doesn’t offer to come upstairs and tie that hand for him or he’ll feel ashamed of it for the next two moons.

She doesn’t, but then he notices that Greyjoy and Jeyne Poole have come inside the room and everyone else is looking at them… well, wrong.

He looks at Brienne, and she nods, and he wonders for a moment, _how are we at the point where she understands me without needing to say a word_?, and then he motions at those two to just sit with them.

“Thank you,” Jeyne tells them courteously.

Jaime shrugs. “Far from me to be a bad host to the only person our lords here might dislike more than me.”

Greyjoy snorts, though he does cover his mouth with his hand, and says that he could be in worse company.

They eat their porridge in silence. It’s _almost_ shaping up to be a not so bad morning.

 _Almost_.

Secondly…

It’s almost a not so bad morning until he hears Mors Umbler grumbling under his breath that he doesn’t like that the lady’s friend and the lady’s _sworn sword_ are apparently mixing up with the traitors. And –

Greyjoy just scoffs, as if he had been expecting it and mere words won’t be what hurts him.

Jeyne, though –

Jeyne looks literally pained at the suggestion, her hand suddenly grabbing Theon’s wrist, and her eyes are obviously saying _you don’t know what you’re talking about_ , and Jaime doesn’t know much of what she’s gone through but he knows Greyjoy was the reason she escaped Winterfell, and –

He turns on his back, fast enough that everyone around him gasps.

“Lord Umber,” he says, “if you want to call me a bloody traitor, you can do that to my face. And from what I hear of who brought these two to Stannis, you should imagine why _she_ would want to break her fast with _him_ , so how about you tell that to her face, too?”

Umber stands up and Jaime does as well, and suddenly there’s a tension in the entire room that Jaime doesn’t like, but he’s gone this far, he’s going to finish it.

“Careful, Lannister,” he says, “maybe the king and the lady can see farther than we can, or maybe they have too much of their father in them, the gods bless him, but he certainly wasn’t the kind of person who _did_ spot traitors when they said they’d help him.”

“So what’s your point?”

“My point is that we’re watching you,” Umber says, “and that the two of you being around two _ladies_ who are around the lady Sansa might be a cause for concern, if you –”

“Fuck you,” Jaime interrupts him, and _then_ the silence is so thick that you could hear a pin drop –

But he’s just so bloody _angry_ that he couldn’t keep that in.

“ _Excuse me_?”

“ _Fuck. You_. My lord,” Jaime spits, and at this point one part of him is telling him to stop, but the other –

The other has kept to itself too many things for too long a time.

“And you know why? Because you’re standing there assuming that I’m planning your demise _not_ because of my family’s misdeeds, but because according to _you_ , I killed my king after swearing to serve him and so I’m not to be trusted at any point ever. Well, _fuck you_. I got into the Kingsguard at _fifteen_ , and then I spent two years being Aerys’s shadow. Aerys was _mad_. I had to stand outside the door as he raped his wife, I had to watch him _burn your liege lord alive while his eldest son was strangled to death trying to save him_ , and when I stabbed that mad bastard in the back it was because _he was going to blow up King’s Landing with wildfire_ , and if I hadn’t done it maybe half of your army would have blown up with it, and I was the only bloody white cloak in the Red Keep, but of course you all think I killed him while my father had Elia and the children murdered because it was a _plan_. Fuck you. It wasn’t a plan. I killed him to save _an entire city_ and I couldn’t save Elia because I couldn’t be in two places at once, and _no one_ , not even your precious Ned Stark, even thought of asking me why I did it. You’re all standing there judging me without knowing a fucking thing, and you’re also judging _him_ without knowing a fucking thing, because I’m sure the lady here has a reason if she’s sitting with him and not with you. And have you asked? I don’t think so. I’ve made my fucking alliances clear, I think. There’s a goddamned bounty on my head should I set foot wherever my sister is supposed to be in charge. Will you just – will you just fucking _stop_ whispering behind people’s backs without knowing the full story, or is that asking too much of your sanctimonious arses?”

He’s without breath by the end of it, and his throat hurts, and he realizes that he started speaking lowly but at the end he was screaming, and everyone is staring at him either as if they’re looking at an entire new person or as if they’re sure he’s going to snap and kill someone and lose his wits, and he doesn’t feel relieved at all. He doesn’t, because everyone is _staring_ and everything is shaking around him and he thinks his vision is getting blurry –

“And we have to buy this from an oathbreaker who fucked his sister, not that entire realm doesn’t know?” _Someone_ says, he can’t pinpoint who, he can’t even _begin_ to because now the only thing he wants to say is _but did I even ever have any choice_ , but he can’t, and his chest is hurting like the seven hells and he wants to hurl but at the same time he feels like he’s going to faint and –

“Can’t you see he’s feeling sick?”

That was Brienne. He’s sure that was Brienne, and suddenly someone’s holding him up by the arm and dragging him out of the room but he can’t see anything because everything is blurred and he doesn’t even think he can walk and he wants to throw up and –

“ _Jaime_!”

He shakes his head – he knows she must be getting worried sick but he can’t talk, he _can’t_ –

Suddenly, he realizes that he’s sitting down somewhere. On the ground, probably, with his back against the wall, and there’s hands on his face, and –

“Can you look at me?”

He doesn’t think he can but for her he can try, especially when she’s asking with such a calm voice, and so he does, with an effort that _opening one’s eyes_ should never take.

“Good,” she says, and when he sees her blue eyes staring back at him he almost wants to break down in tears. If he’s not crying already. “You aren’t – you aren’t breathing properly, just – breathe in.”

He does, closing his eyes again. He takes another when she tells him to do it again, and again, and then she does it along with him and he follows her lead and then he realizes that he’s breathing more or less properly again except that he still feels like he’s going to vomit.

“I’m going to be sick,” he whispers, and since _when_ does his voice sound so tiny? “I think.”

“Just breathe regularly. You can be sick if it comes to it.”

“I’d throw up all over you,” he croaks.

“It wouldn’t be the first time you do it,” she replies, and right, he _has_ thrown up on her while with the Bloody Mummers, hasn’t he? He just hopes she keeps her hands there because having her rough, warm fingers on his face is not hurting when it comes to focusing, and he keeps on breathing and then he doesn’t think he’s going to vomit anymore, but he knows he can’t stand.

Shit.

He’s a mess, isn’t he?

“’m sorry,” he manages to say, still keeping his eyes closed. He doesn’t think he can look at her.

“What for?”

_What for?_

“Brienne, _please_ , this scene wasn’t – anywhere near dignified.”

“ _Dignified_? Lord Umber had no right, and I don’t know how you didn’t go off at anyone about Aerys in your entire life before or after you told me,” she says, and he can barely believe his own ears. Is she actually approving of it? “And the rest – his nephew had no right either. But – this – whatever _this_ is, you aren’t all right, are you?”

He wants to laugh. “No,” he admits. “No, I’m really fucking not. And you shouldn’t be worrying.”

“I _shouldn’t be_?”

Given how outraged she sounds, he _has_ to open his eyes. She’s looking at him as if she’s _worried_ but also as if she can’t understand what the hell he’s just told her.

And –

Gods. They’re kneeling in a corner in a hallway. They’re in public. He’s still feeling like complete shit. He shouldn’t do this here. But he also knows he can’t even _stand up_ now, never mind walking back to his room, never mind do anything –

“Wench, you’re – you deserve better than worrying after me. Honestly. I’ll be all right. At some point.”

“Jaime, _what in the Seven Hells_? Since _when_ – I don’t _deserve_ better or whatever, I – of course I would –” She shakes her head, then moves a hand to cup the back of his head, and looks back up at him again. “Jaime, you’re _not_ all right. And we both know it. _Tell me_.”

It sounds so easy when she says it.

And – he kind of wants to, because he doesn’t know if he can keep it in much longer, and patience if she hates him for it, but he doesn’t’ – how does he start?

_I haven’t gotten over Aerys after all?_

_I don’t know where I start and where my sister begins?_

_You deserve far better than what you’re getting?_

“I – someone asked me how it was between me and Cersei,” he starts. “It was – curiosity. I guess. That’s why I told them. And – it turns out – everything I had to say, it was something _she_ had said before. And most of that was – things she said since forever. And – they made an interesting point.”

“Such as?”

“… That maybe she – she was more interested in making sure I couldn’t be without her because she thought I was _her_ except, you know, male, than being interested in – well. Me. I guess. Which – made me think about other things. A lot of other things. Among which – ones I’m not proud of at all, which _I_ did for _love_ , I guess, except that I loved _her_. I don’t – all things considered, they were probably right. As in – she never loved _me_. She did love herself, though. Which brings us to the fucking worst problem.”

“All right,” she says, “tell me.” Gods, how doesn’t she sound _judging_?

“Try finding out that _for your entire life_ the person you – the person you loved and you thought loved you back actually never gave a shit and only saw in you what she wanted to see and _might have convinced you that you had no right to exist when she wasn’t concerned_ , then see if that doesn’t make you feel somewhat sick. I mean – she always said we were born together and should die together and that sounded fine by me, hell, it sounded great, because what would a life without her be, but then that made me think, and I realized, _would I have wanted her to die with me instead of living,_ and of course I wouldn’t have, and – then what the fuck is even left?”

“Jaime –”

“Seven hells, wench, I’m – I spent _all_ of my life buying into that, I _thought_ I had no reason to live if she wasn’t there and then it turns out that the moment I lose the fucking right hand she can’t stand to be around me anymore, and _before_ I could trick myself into thinking we just – it just didn’t work because of that, but _now_? I doubt it. The only things I ever done that I sort of decided for myself before our charming trip were going with Arthur chasing bandits and killing Aerys, none of which I regret, but the Kingsguard – _that_ I do, and it was also _her_ fucking idea, not just mine. I – I ruined my brother’s life because my father convinced me to lie about the girl he married and I ruined that poor girl’s life, too, and –”

“Wait, _when_? How?”

Right. She doesn’t know. “It was not long after Aerys,” he starts, unable to stop. “Tyrion married a commoner. She – she actually did love him and had no idea who he was when they met, but my father wouldn’t stand for it and he convinced me to tell Tyrion that she was a prostitute and that I hired her to pretend she loved him out of some misguided conception, and I did because refusing my father was not – it _really_ wasn’t something any of us could afford, I already angered him enough taking the white once. I convinced myself it wouldn’t let Tyrion get hurt in the long run, except that since _then_ he only ever had whores and the girl – shit, she got raped by a long line of Lannister soldiers _on my father’s orders_ and if I only had refused – and that was _after_ I realized my father sent Clegane to kill Elia and those two children, when _it was my duty to protect them_ , fuck – and it’s all _my bloody fault_ , isn’t –”

“Jaime, _what in the Seven Hells_ , how is it your fault?”

He stops at once. It was – it was the last thing he had imagined her saying.

“How _is it not_?”

“Jaime, good gods, if it was just after Aerys, then – you couldn’t have been older than _me_ right now,” she says. “And it’s on your _father_ , not on you.”

“I agreed, didn’t I?”

“Did you have a choice or you felt like you _had_ to especially since he didn’t want you to take the white? And how is that your fault if you couldn’t fight off Clegane _and_ keep an eye on the king at once? That’d be on _Rhaegar_ , not you.”

She makes it sound _so easy_. If only it _was_ easy. “I spent too many years convincing myself it wasn’t my fault,” he says instead of even trying to buy it, “don’t try to twist it as if it wasn’t.”

“ _Twist it_?”

“Brienne, honestly, I don’t even know why you’re doing this but it’s not worth it and you don’t have to spare my feelings.”

“ _You don’t even know_ – Jaime, gods, since when have you been thinking _that_?”

“It was a week and something before you came back from the Vale, I think. What’s even the matter? The matter is that I wasted my entire fucking life, I tried to delude myself into thinking I could be a halfway decent person while I was buying Cersei’s fairytales about how we were the only right people for each other, I had _three_ children I didn’t even talk to and I ruined the life of the only relative I have who ever gave two fucks about my opinion, and on top of that –” He raises his right arm, then makes it fall again, “after _that_ , I’m not even good at the one thing I was good at. You can say it. I know you’re too honorable and _nice_ to do it and for some kind of reason you feel obligated to sweeten the poison, but –”

“Jaime, _Seven Hells_ ,” she interrupts, and why are her eyes _horrified_ now? They shouldn’t be. They’re too pretty for that. “How are you getting it so wrong?” She whispers, and he has to close his eyes because he can’t bear to have her look at him like _this_. Like she actually thinks he’s wrong and like there’s something about him that’s worth keeping around.

Because it’s really, really not true.

Then he hears people talking and he realizes _someone_ probably came into the hallway and _shit_ , shit, he can’t deal with anyone else, and his hand starts shaking again where he’s gripping her shoulder –

“Oh, for –” She starts, “I’m not having this discussion here. Can you stand?”

“I don’t know,” he replies.

“Fine. Podrick, would you mind helping me bring him to my room?”

A moment later, he hears Payne coming over to his side – she helps him up and goes to the other side. He stares at his feet. He has no desire to look at _anyone else_.

“Anyone else, you can leave.”

“My lady –” Someone starts.

“He’s obviously not well and I’ll call a maester if needed, now _will you let me pass_?”

Whoever it was, they do.

Not long later, he’s sitting on her bed and Podrick Payne left the premises, and he’s looking at the blanket covering her bed rather than anywhere else. It’s a dull gray color, nothing special, but –

He gasps the moment she sits next to him.

“Ser,” she says, “would you _please_ look at me?”

“I don’t know if I can,” he says.

“ _Why_?”

“I don’t deserve the way you look at me,” he whispers, cringing the moment he says it. Gods, what must she be thinking now? Most probably that only someone completely fucking weak wouldn’t –

“Very well, I shall say it anyway. It – I don’t know _how_ you reached those conclusions, and I won’t be the person explaining you your own relationship with your sister because I couldn’t and I wouldn’t, but you’re completely wrong. On all accounts.”

“I doubt that.”

“ _Really_? You went into the Kingsguard _also_ to do good, and maybe she pushed you so that you couldn’t be with anyone else or not, but if you hadn’t been there, King’s Landing wouldn’t exist anymore. You bore that madman for two years and it obviously destroyed you and you _still_ found it in yourself to do the right thing even at the cost of your reputation, and has your father ever shown any guilt for Elia Martell and her children _or_ for your brother’s wife?”

“No, but –”

“You’ve been beating yourself up over it for I don’t know how long about _both_. With Elia, you couldn’t help it and honestly, Rhaegar Targaryen was a fool for leaving _only_ you behind when you also were the youngest white cloak. What he was expecting? And your father convinced you to lie to your brother, but _was that your idea_? Seems to me like he took advantage of you, sorry to say.”

“ _What_ –”

“ _Jaime_ , if you were feeling anywhere like _I_ was feeling after I had to kill Lady Stoneheart I can entirely understand why you did it. Let me finish. _That_ is not on you, or not completely. And as far as your sister is concerned… can’t you see you’re nowhere like her at all?”

Thing is – he had been purposefully staring at the wall as she said it.

But the _way_ she said it – her voice had taken such a sweet cadence that he can’t _not_ look at her, clinging to it the way a drowning man would cling to a piece of wood drifting in the sea, and when he does look at her she looks as if she entirely means it, and when was the last time someone looked at him with such understanding?

“I doubt –”

“And actually, if she _really_ tried to convince you that you were _like her_ all your life, it’s just proof that you might have the strongest will in this realm.”

 _What_?

“Wench, I think you’re hallucinating –”

“ _Jaime_. From what you’ve said and from what I know, you were the one person in your family who loved your brother and she certainly did _not_ , and you _kept_ on doing it regardless of what she told you. Your sister is playing any card she can think of to stay on that throne, and you didn’t even think of claiming it when you could. You lost _your hand_ and instead of letting yourself die you pushed on –”

“Because _you_ were there,” he says.

“Fine, so I gave you a push, but you _lived_ , and then you threw yourself in a damned bear pit without a weapon _for me_ when we weren’t even supposed to like each other, you tried to keep your vows as best as you could have, you’ve freed Tyrion even if I do not think your sister approved of it, you took Riverrun without bloodshed even if I _know_ you didn’t even want to go there, you told me. And I don’t know if you have a clue of how your squire’s woman sings your praises, but if you gave her the head of _the man who raped her_ , I don’t think you’re any similar to your father. Or your sister. And now you’re fighting _against_ her, and on top of that you’re the only person I ever met who took the time to _not_ judge me based on how I look, never mind took me seriously, and I’m fairly sure other people could say the same. Gods, how don’t you see that if even when you spent your life hearing what you call _your sister’s fairytales_ , you still turned out a decent man who wants to do the right thing, and it only shows how strong is your backbone rather than the contrary?”

Gods. She means it, he realizes as he looks at her. She means every bloody word of it, and suddenly his throat feels dry and he doesn’t even know what to say, and she probably notices it, because then she shakes her head and moves slightly closer. “Jaime, I don’t flatter people. I think we’ve known each other long enough for you to know that I don’t speak things I don’t mean.”

“No. No, you don’t,” he agrees. “But –”

“ _But_ nothing. You did despicable things. You also paid for them, or at least I’d say so. That said –” She breathes in as if she’s gathering courage – _for what_ – and then she puts a hand on his left wrist. “This is not how I thought I would tell you, if at all,” she says quietly, “but I think you need to hear it, so – never mind.”

“I – I need to hear _what_?”

“Jaime Lannister,” she says, “I – I cannot in good conscience tell you you’re wrong about whether your sister loved you, herself, or the image of you she had in her head. You’d know that better than I do. But if she really did love you just because she saw you as a part of her, or worse, if she told you for your entire life that you were the same person so you’d not notice you were _not_ , then she was more of a fool than anyone could imagine, even knowing how her reign has fared until now.”

“ _What_ –”

“ _Because_ ,” she goes on, “ _you_ might not be what anyone would call the best person in Westeros, maybe, and perhaps most of the realm thinks there’s nothing salvageable in you, but if Pod and Hyle’s lives hadn’t been at stake, I _would_ have gladly died if it meant not having to kill the best man _I_ have known.”

“I’m not –”

“To _me_ , you’ve been. I can see it the way _you_ could see that I wasn’t a jape when it came to being a knight or my oaths or anything of the kind. And you can say whatever you want, but after all this time I think I can see why Arthur Dayne thought you were worthy of being knighted that young. Your heart is in the right place regardless of how many times you did something you loathed, and if it consoles you I think you deserved far better than a mad king and most of your family. Regardless – if I had died I couldn’t have fulfilled my oath to Lady _Catelyn_ and I would have never found Sansa and we wouldn’t be here, but I still wouldn’t have regretted it because _you_ are fucking worth it, and I don’t know who did your sister think she loved. I wouldn’t have died for someone like your sister, and I don’t think I could have ever loved them, but for _you_? I would have. And _you_? I could, and – and I _do_. You don’t have to say anything and I know it’d be foolish to expect you to reciprocate it, and if it was up to me I’d have never even told you, but just know that _what is left,_ if you take away everything you went through that you didn’t deserve, is still the best man I know. And now if you’d rather be alone –”

“Brienne, _fuck it all_ , you tell _me_ I have it all wrong and then you think it’d be _foolish_ if I loved you back when if it wasn’t for you I’d have fucking died long before getting to Harrenhaal?” He blurts, and he’s actually more angry that she’d think _herself_ unworthy of _him_ when _he_ is the one who doesn’t deserve her and most likely never will, and _then_ he realizes that she’s just told him _she’s in love with him_ , and a month ago he’d have probably rejoiced and he’d have kissed her _right the hell now_ and he’d have looked forward to committing to memory all the ways in which she would have kissed back and fit against him and moaned into his mouth, hopefully, but _now_ –

Now he can just think, _she shouldn’t_.

“Are you saying –”

“I’m saying that you should leave and find yourself someone who’s not a _useless old cripple_ in every damned sense of the word and who’ll just hold you back for _anything_ and who’s worthy of you, and I’m also saying that if you think I could never love you back because you’re _ugly_ or whatever, you’re more wrong than I could be about anything.”

“Who said that?”

“Who said _what_?”

“Useless old cripple. I can hear it’s not _you_.”

“ _How_?”

“From the way you said it. Who was that?”

He sighs. “My sister. The last time she tried to convince me to have my brother killed. She also tried to fuck me in the Lord Commander’s tower and I refused, and – it wasn’t a nice conversation. It was just before I gave you Oathkeeper, by the way. Why?”

She shakes her head. “Gods, I never thought I’d say it, but if she was in front of me right now I don’t know what I’d do. Something entirely not honorable, though.”

“That doesn’t sound like you.”

“And _useless old cripple_ doesn’t sound like the man I know, and excuse me but I’d like to think that I know you better than she did, at this point.”

And – gods, she sounds so sincere as she says it, and maybe he did need to hear it after all, and before he knows his shoulders are trembling ever so slightly and he’s looking at her through blurred eyes and –

“You do,” he admits, “gods, you do,” and he’s horrified to hear that he broke down on the last two words, and he knows he’s crying and he _can’t fucking stop it_ , but then she grabs his arm and moves in front of him with her arms open and he doesn’t even think before throwing his good hand around her back and moving his head to the crook of her neck.

He’ll bring to his grave that he started crying harder when her hand tentatively started stroking his hair and she even more tentatively lightly kissed the side of his head, but he can only think of that time she caught him in that pool in Harrenhaal and of how gentle she was even _then_ , and of how she deserves so much _better_ than him, but then again he really isn’t so selfless that he’d send her away now.

He’s not. And she doesn’t attempt to move away, so neither does he.

\--

That is, until he realizes he doesn’t have any tears left to shed and she _hasn’t_ moved away at all.

He leans back a bit, just so that he can look at her, and it hits him how concerned she is, but also how she’s not looking at him with pity or revulsion or anything of the kind.

“I’m – I’m sorry,” he says, “I just –”

“Jaime,” she says, “when I was looking for Sansa, sometimes – sometimes I felt so frustrated and like there was no way I could succeed. One of those times, I – I might’ve wondered what would have happened if I came back to King’s Landing and told you I failed, and whether you’d have let me _cry it out on your shoulder_ if I did. Do you think I could _ever_ think you weak for having needed the same?”

“I shouldn’t,” he protests. “I just – I don’t, this is _not_ how – gods, I _know_ Cersei would say I was being needlessly weak and sentimental.” He has to laugh at that, but it’s bitter, and he doesn’t feel it at all.

“Haven’t we just established that your sister is wrong about a lot of things, especially concerning _you_?”

“… Right, _fine_ , I yield,” he says, and he can’t keep himself from smiling for real at that, and she smiles back, less tentatively than him, and maybe a month ago he wouldn’t have thought it through before kissing her, but now he _is_ , and on one side he doesn’t want to saddle her any further, but on the other she just told him that she _wants_ him to, and –

Fuck it, he thinks, _since when have I ever let anything stop me from what I really wanted_ , and _I don’t want Cersei to be what makes me unhappy all over again_ , and he moves closer, and then –

“My lady, if you want to back out of this _please_ say so before I do it and –”

“Jaime, you’re the best knight I know, but _this_ kind of courtesy doesn’t suit you,” she says, and then _she_ closes the distance between them, and it’s _obvious_ that she’s never kissed anyone in her life but she _means_ it, she means it entirely, and as he coaxes her lips to part and she does and her hand that wasn’t still in his hair wraps gently around his naked right wrist, he thinks that maybe he doesn’t deserve her in the slightest but he’s really, really happy that she doesn’t seem to care.

\--

Thing is: it does help. A bit. For a few days.

She tells him to share her bed that night. They do absolutely nothing past touching above the waist, but having someone next to him _does_ help him avoid to toss and turn every other moment and that person being _her_ means that he can worry about how her chest seems to fit perfectly against his back rather than losing himself in memories he shouldn’t even touch, and he gets decent sleep for the first time since a long while. After his outburst people just either avoid him or talk to him as if they’re afraid he’ll snap at them, but that’s fine enough. He can live with it.

And then the raven from King’s Landing arrives while they’re in the middle of a council.

Jon’s face turns ashen white as he reads it, and Sansa’s does, too, and then they both look at _him_ worryingly and then they hand the raven back to Sam, the maester, but Jaime’s seen enough.

“What’s in that piece of paper, Your Grace?” He asks.

“Ser Jaime,” Sansa says, “I don’t think you want to know.”

“I don’t run away from the things I don’t want to know, my lady. Could I please see it?”

Jon and Sansa stare at each other but then she shrugs as if to say, _you can’t keep him from knowing anyway_. Jon hands him the raven.

Jaime opens it and reads it –

And then he reads it again.

“No,” he says, his hand now shaking so wildly he has to let the raven drop. “No. She can’t – is that _true_?”

“She signed it,” Sansa says, sounding _sorry_ , and –

He just –

Good gods.

Brienne reaches down and takes the raven, reading it herself, and then he can see her pretty blue eyes fill up with horror as she understands why he’s shaking his head and whispering _no_ under his breath.

“Jaime –” She says.

“Gods,” he whispers, “it was all for fucking nothing.” His voice sounds so strangled, it’s a miracle anyone can understand him.

Shit.

 _Shit_.

He gave up his honor, his reputation and his name and his fucking freedom and too many other things in the name of his kingslaying, but at least he could tell himself, _at least I saved all those people_.

Except that apparently now Cersei found a way to avoid her trial.

By _blowing up the entire sept of Baelor and half of King’s Landing with it._

 _With fucking wildfire_.

“Oh, _fuck_ ,” he whispers, the revelation coming to him so neatly and so obvious that he can’t – he just _can’t_ avoid it or deny it. “She was Aerys all along, wasn’t she?” He asks Brienne, and just her, and then he feels his legs shake wildly and the last thing he registers as he faints is Brienne’s arms wrapping around his waist and stopping his fall and he thinks, _some things never do change, do they_?

 

\---

 

Admittedly, “Lord Greyjoy, I need to talk to you because I think you’re my last hope,” was _not_ something Brienne ever imagined herself asking the man.

Except that she has to.

Theon Greyjoy, who had been sitting under one of the heart trees and definitely _had not_ been expecting her, doesn’t look too convinced, but motions for her to sit.

“Well,” he says, “first thing, drop that _lord_. It’s just – not the person I am these days, I guess. Theon will do, if it please you. Second thing, _how_ can I be of help? I doubt I could be to anyone, least of all you.”

“No, you’re the only person who could,” she replies. “And – it’s not about me. It’s about –”

“It’s about _Lannister_ , isn’t it?”

She nods. “I – I don’t know if you are aware, but –”

“I know what Jeyne tells me and I _do_ talk to Jon and Sansa, but as far as _they_ told me, he has barely left your room since he learned that his sister about did what he killed Aerys Targaryen to avoid, and whenever he left it, he didn’t look his best. Am I right?”

“Yes,” she admits, “but – I wish it was just _that_. It’s – he was sleeping somewhat better _before_ , but now he hasn’t slept much if at all, and it’s been what, three weeks? Almost one moon? He’s throwing up half of what he eats, some of those nights I’m pretty sure he woke up thinking he was in King’s Landing _when Aerys was alive_ and – well, he insists I go do my duty during the day because he shouldn’t _hold me back_ and a whole lot of other nonsense, and I do, and when I come back he’s just staring out of the window into _nothing_ and it takes a while before he even notices I’m there. Even if I’m being noisy. I don’t know what to do anymore, especially since he keeps on sounding convinced that I should just leave him to be miserable and of course I don’t _want_ to, but – that’s it.”

“I see,” Greyjoy says, sounding like someone who _indeed_ understands it. “I think I know why you would want to talk to _me_ , but can I please hear it?”

“You – one doesn’t even need to ask to know you’ve been through worse,” she says. “I mean, uh –”

“You mean, at least he’s short one fairly important limb but that’s all there is to it _on the outside_?” He laughs, and it actually sounds like he _is_ finding it amusing.

“And the fact that you’re laughing about it is exactly the reason why I wanted to talk to _you_. I mean, I don’t know much, but from what Jeyne says and from what Lady Sansa says, it sounds like you’re doing… well enough. And you obviously overcome the worst. And maybe you could talk to him? I don’t think he’s listening to me much even if I’m sure he wants to.”

“Well, my lady,” Greyjoy says, and she can’t help feeling horrified at how _white_ his hair looks even if she knows he’s barely older than she is, but at the same time he did put on some muscle or so Jeyne says, and he looks – remarkably good, for what she knows of where he comes from, “I don’t think _me_ talking to him would work. I mean, if he’s somewhat like _I_ am, someone who got it worse or that he’d think got it worse talking to him wouldn’t accomplish anything. I know because if someone had _talked_ to me the way you mean before I actually realized a few things on my own, I wouldn’t have listened. If you want advice, I can only tell you what _might_ help, but he has to get there on his own. Or you could give him a nudge, I suppose.”

“My lord – _Theon_ , I think at this point _any_ advice is welcomed.”

“Hm,” he mutters, “you _really_ do care for him, don’t you?” He sounds wistful.

“I – yes,” she admits, knowing she’s blushing and looking down at her hands, but of course she does. And gods, with all the time it took her to actually come to terms with the fact that _maybe_ if she told him, he wouldn’t say no, and with how she had to confess when she’d have rather done it in a less distraught way, now the last thing she wants is losing him to a dead man and a sister who’s a thousand miles away and never probably cared for what _he_ needed if it wasn’t what _she_ needed first.

“Well, then he’s luckier than I was,” Theon says. “I mean, you’re alive, for one.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“My lady, the one person who _did_ care for me in a somewhat similar way died at the Red Wedding. At least he doesn’t have to worry about _that_. But never mind it. So, let me guess. He feels guilty, doesn’t he?”

She _has_ to burst out in a very nervous laugh. “Should I give you the list?”

“No, it’s not needed. Thing is, I _also_ felt guilty, and my ruin was that I _didn’t_ want to, and so I pretended that I had no reason to.”

“He’s doing the contrary.”

“As in?”

“He thinks he’s guilty for a lot things he couldn’t control,” she sighs.

“That doesn’t change the problem,” Theon sighs. “Anyway, I – had my own problems. I don’t think they were the same as his, except for the guilt. And – I got over them when I admitted to myself I had done a lot of things I regretted, and that it was my own bloody fault, and that I took a lot of stupid decisions I couldn’t change. And I had to accept it. After then – well, it was either letting myself die or doing _something_ about it, and I was in the position to do it.”

“And what is it that you did?”

He smiles. It’s showing his teeth, and he’s not covering them. “I dragged Jeyne out of her room and jumped off the roof with her. Why do you think she’s one of the few people in this castle with a somewhat high opinion of me, my lady?”

 _Oh_ , she thinks, _because you saved her life_.

 _You might have more in common with Jaime than you think_.

“Well,” she says, “I also have a high opinion of _him_ because he saved my life once.” She tells him about the bear pit and Theon listens, and then –

“I think I can see _why_ you would think highly of him,” he says. “That said, after I realized that – things got better, I suppose. It’s liberating, if you make peace with yourself. But he has to do it himself, you can’t _tell_ him.”

“I see,” she says, “except that you’re saying you _didn’t_ think about your misdeeds. He _only_ thinks about them. All the damned time.”

“In what terms?”

“… In terms where he feels responsible for things he couldn’t have helped _and_ at the same time he thinks he’s the worst fool on this planet for not having understood that his sister was more similar to Aerys Targaryen than to _himself_. Then again, he thought they were – the same person for… most of his life, so. _That_ might be a problem.”

Theon says nothing for a while. Then –

“He should talk to _someone_ who’s tied to whatever issues he has.”

“Sorry?”

“My lady, I can’t apologize to Robb for what I did to him, and I couldn’t apologize to those two children I ordered dead so I could pretend they were Bran and Rickon Stark, and I couldn’t apologize to the people who died when I took Winterfell. But I tried to save Jeyne because at least I’d have died doing something worthwhile if I had to – and because I wanted to leave, mind it, but there was _that_ , too –, and I could apologize to Jon, and I could apologize to Sansa, and I could apologize to Rickon Stark who doesn’t even remember my face, and I could talk things out with my sister who according to her owed _me_ apologies. I can’t tell my father that I wish he had died long before he did, but I got over it. _That_ might help. You weren’t there after all – he probably thinks you mean well but don’t _get_ it.”

Which is entirely true, except that now she wants to cry. “That’s excellent advice. Too bad it’s not an option.”

“How?”

“His brother is… does anyone even _know_? His sister is not an option. Rhaegar Targaryen is _dead_ and I doubt Jon is a worthwhile replacement, what would he even know? Aerys – let’s not even discuss that, and his father is dead. His living children? They’re not an option either. Or Bran Stark, who is alive but certainly not _here_? _Who_ would he even talk to?”

“Well, _shit_ ,” Theon says, sounding like he entirely sympathizes. “Then I don’t know what else I can say. I can just tell you _how_ I figured out where I went wrong.”

“Maybe it might help.”

He shrugs. “I was going up the stairs to Jeyne’s room with this group of spearwives Jon sent to help _his sister_ out. Of course, they didn’t know it was Jeyne and not _Arya_ and of course I kept my mouth shut. So, I thought – that I had walked those stairs a hell of a lot of times. That I fought Robb on those because it was good sword practice, and that everyone who ever walked those stairs with me was _dead_ , and Robb was one of them, and – I had sort of tried to not think about it until then. Because it hurt too much. But at that point – I realizes that _he_ was the person I should have been with. Even if it had meant died at the Red Wedding. _That_ was where I went completely wrong. Being _there_ forced me to face it. And – it made me understand a lot of things, and it made me realize that I just had to accept it, and – I did. I moved on. That’s about it. I don’t know if it’s of any help, but that’s – that’s about it.”

“Thank you,” she says, meaning it entirely. “It – it means a lot that you actually told me. You didn’t have to.”

“My lady –”

“Brienne, please.”

“ _Brienne_ , I made a lot of dumb mistakes in my life and I regret a lot of things, and I like to think that if I can help someone else then I can somehow live with it better. I just hope you figure something out, and even if you don’t – he might think he doesn’t deserve you and maybe he doesn’t, but if you’re there you’re already helping out.”

 _If only it was so easy_ , she thinks as she leaves him be and heads back to Winterfell.

The advice was _all_ sound, she decides, but how does she get Jaime to talk to his siblings or _his bloody father_ or Aerys or anyone he dreams of at night when _most of them are dead_?

No. There _has_ to be some other way, she thinks as she heads to Sansa’s chambers – she has a duty and Jaime will have her head if she comes back before her due time.

\--

“You haven’t caught any sleep, have you?” She asks softly as she brings him some dinner – he hasn’t set foot in the main hall for a long time, but she can imagine why.

“I wish,” he says, “but lately it’s always Aerys and Cersei _at once_ , I’d rather fucking not.”

He lost too much weight, she thinks. She knows he’s not going to finish his food and she knows he’s not going to sleep much tonight either, and she hates that his eyes are turning the same dull green they were after he lost his hand.

Gods, she can’t believe that his sister is on the other side of Westeros and she could _still_ manage to ruin his life even if he left her behind.

“When, during the Rebellion?”

“Yes,” he admits. “ _Always_. God, I can’t stand it anymore.”

“What?”

“All that bloody wildfire. Every fucking time I close my eyes I see them looking out at the city as it burns and I’m too fucking late to stop them,” he sighs. “And it’s going to drive me bloody mad, and then _I_ am going to turn into Aerys, and he’s going to have the last laugh. He’d have loved it,” he says, and he sounds like he’s about to cry all over again, and she _hates_ that she could protect him from Lady Stoneheart but not from _this_ –

But then –

“You said – it’s always the same situation? Every time?”

“Yes,” he admits, pressing up against the hand she’s just put on his neck.

“Can – can I ask you something?”

“Wench, I think you can ask me anything by now.”

“What – when it happened. For real. Was there _something_ that could have gone different which – which might have made you feel not so bloody _guilty_ about it?”

Jaime lets out a laugh that sounds almost hysterical, and then he speaks and she understands why. “Maybe if our honorable and always proper Lord Stark had bothered to ask me _why the hell had I done it_ instead of deciding I was the worst oathbreaker in the realm, I guess I could have taken it better. But Lord Stark is long dead, Brienne, it’s no point dwelling on it.”

Of course, Lord Stark is dead.

But –

What did Greyjoy say?

_Being there forced me to face it. And – it made me understand a lot of things, and it made me realize that I just had to accept it, and – I did. I moved on._

Of course, Jaime _can’t_ be there – no one can go back in time, and King’s Landing is far.

But maybe –

 _Maybe_ –

Gods, it sounds ridiculous, and she’s sure it’s a very stupid idea, and he’ll probably laugh when she proposes it, and she’s never going to pull it off, but –

“He’s dead,” she agrees. “But – can you hear me out one moment?”

“Why?”

“I – I think – I think I know something that might help you get over it,” she says, quietly.

“I doubt that,” he snorts, “but please, do share.”

Brienne does.

He listens.

Then –

“It sounds completely mad,” he says, “but I’m – I’m tired,” he admits, and she can see it in the way his shoulders are slumped and she can hear it in his voice. “I’m _tired_ , and I want it to _stop_ , and I want to be at least someone halfway deserving of the time you spend on them –”

“Jaime, it’s not about me _deserving_ –”

“You _don’t_ deserve someone who’s going to be afraid of their own fucking shadow within one moon if it goes on like this. I don’t know if it might work, but I can give it a try if our hosts agree.”

“I’ll talk to them,” she says, trying to sound surer than she actually feels.

“Then – fine. _Fine_ ,” he says, and he doesn’t put any resistance when she shakes her head and draws him close, and she wants to tell him for the umpteenth time that this has nothing to do with either of them deserving each other, and that she hates even thinking of it in such terms, but that’d be useless now.

\--

Admittedly, Jon Snow and Sansa are fairly surprised when she asks them if they can make sure no one is around the Great Keep later that night and whether there are some of Ned Stark’s clothes left in the castle and if she might borrow them.

But Jon then says she can have what’s left of them and that he’ll make sure no one is around that night, sure, and not long later, a chest full of clothes is sent to her room.

She goes through them. Unsurprisingly, Ned Stark was shorter than her and not as broad, but there’s a cloak she can wear, and it’s large enough that it would cover her own clothes without much of a problem. And the color is the same as _her_ usual Stark garb – very well then, she’ll have to be content with it. She sends the chest back to Jon, thanking the maid, and puts the clothes aside. Jaime is in his room, they agreed to not meet before the evening falls and they have to go through their little charade.

Gods, she _really_ hopes this won’t make things any _worse_.

\--

She hears Jaime leaving his room later that night.

She waits as much time as they agreed upon, then she wears Lord Stark’s cloak, puts on the hood, places Oathkeeper at her hip and leaves the room, too.

Then she walks down the stairs until she reaches the Great Keep and the throne room. She doesn’t knock – Ned Stark sure as the Seven Hells wouldn’t have knocked.

There’s no light except for a few candles. She kicks the door closed – Ned Stark _wouldn’t_ have done that, but she doesn’t need anyone to pass by and hear them.

Then she finally looks up at the former throne of the kings in the North, which is a throne again _now_ and not just a seat for the Warden of the North. Jaime’s sitting there, as agreed upon. He’s sitting there with a sword put across his legs, as if he owns the damned thing and she can imagine he would have, back in the day. She doesn’t know where he found a white cloak and white clothes to replace an armor he doesn’t have anymore, but he somehow _did_.

She walks closer.

Gods, he _shaved_. She doesn’t know how he managed or whether he asked for help but his face is completely smooth now, and it would probably have been, back in the day.

“Lord Stark,” he says, and Brienne only barely manages to keep in a gasp, because he sounds different. He sounds – more confident, and _younger_ , and… angry, she thinks. Really, _really_ angry.

“Ser Jaime,” she replies, not knowing if it’s foolish or not to try to speak in a deeper tone of voice but choosing to do so anyway, “I imagine you have an explanation for this?” Gods, what was she thinking, she has _no idea_ of what Stark might have talked like, _but_ –

But didn’t Jaime tell her, _just say what you think he should have, after all you_ honorable people _should get each other?_

 

“I suppose,” she goes on, “that if you broke the most sacred oath a _knight_ could give, either you’re the worst of oathbreakers or you might have had a very good reason.”

Jaime nods once, keeping his right wrist hidden under the sword. He doesn’t have the golden hand, she realizes.

“I think,” he says, “that I had an excellent reason.”

“Then I want to hear it,” she replies.

“Why, you aren’t claiming the throne before then?”

“Are _you_ , Lannister?”

“No,” Jaime snorts, “no, you could offer me three times the gold in Casterly and I wouldn’t want this shit piece of iron. Anyhow, it’s not a long story. There – there are stacks of wildfire planted all around King’s Landing. _He_ was going to set them off,” he says, nodding towards the empty ground at his left. “ _I_ decided that if the choice was _his_ life or the entire city, the city should come first. I did swear a vow to protect the _innocent_ before I donned the white, my lord. That one comes first.”

She nods, taking it in, pretending she’s thinking about it, pretending that he hadn’t sounded _desperate_ in the last part of that sentence, pretending she doesn’t want to throw away this damned cloak and tell him that he never should have had to go through something like _this_ when he was younger than she was when she joined Renly’s guard. “Well,” she says, trying to sound regretful, “we hoped to bring him to justice. Nonetheless, Ser, given the choice you had, I suppose no one can blame you for choosing the people. This – this is where my father and brother died, isn’t it?”

“I’m sorry to say it,” Jaime says, suddenly sounding _less_ angry. “I couldn’t do anything for _them_. I wish I could have.” And gods, he sounds so sincere as he says it, she wishes she had in front of her _anyone_ who ever convinced him he had shit for honor and ask them _why_ couldn’t they listen.

“That’s – the intent is appreciated, Ser,” she says, taking a step closer as he stands up and makes his way down the stairs, slowly, still as if he owns the entire room and just as someone of seven and ten might, and she thinks, _I wasn’t too different when I sailed off Tarth to join an army, was I_? “I imagine you couldn’t have done a thing, either way. Nonetheless, I don’t think I will be the person naming you an oathbreaker when Lord Robert joins us.”

“You – you won’t?”

Gods. _Gods_. He sounds like it’s his damned _name day_ and he just received a priceless gift.

“No,” she says. Then she wonders, _would Ned Stark have said what I’m about to say_ , and then she decides she doesn’t care. “And – I would like to think there’s more honor in saving half a million people than keeping alive a king who didn’t deserve his crown. If I cannot bring him to justice, at least I know it was for a good reason. Never mind that I think it would be… not fair of me to assume the worst of you when I rebelled, myself.”

The sword clatters to the ground, and rather than worrying about picking it back up, she meets Jaime’s eyes – he’s standing on the last step going towards the hall, so he’s actually taller than her now, and she doesn’t know if they’re done or not, but he looks like he’s about to burst out crying and he also looks like he’s looking at her but _not_ , and she hopes he’s not _really_ thinking they’re in King’s Landing or she won’t know what to do.

But then his frown relaxes and his eyes turn relieved, and he says, “I had hoped you’d see why I did it,” and gods but she doesn’t think _she_ has ever sounded so hopeful and grateful in her entire life, not even when she got her Rainbow Guard cloak, and she’s about to tell him that it only was fair, and then –

Then he reaches out with his right arm to obviously do _something_ , and there’s no golden hand on it and he obviously hadn’t been thinking about it and whatever they were doing, it’s likely over because _this_ would destroy any tenuous illusion that this might not be Winterfell years after the fact, and his face quite literally falls at that, and suddenly he looks his years again, and then –

And _then_ –

“I deserved it, didn’t I?” He says, his voice shaking so hard it’s barely intelligible, and –

Brienne throws the cloak from her shoulders and wraps her fingers around his wrist, gentle but firm, and moves so that she has her forehead against his, and doesn’t even try to pretend this is not _her_ talking.

“ _No_ ,” she says. “You didn’t. The Mad King deserved it, not _you_. And I don’t know if – if this helped any or not, but if I have to spend the rest of my life telling you that you didn’t in order to convince you, you can believe I _will_.”

“Given how bloody stubborn you are, I don’t doubt that,” he says, and now – now he’s not pretending anything anymore, and he’s not trying to move away whatsoever. “And – I think it did somewhat work,” he says, “but for different reasons than we might have thought.”

“… Different?”

“It started – it was going the way you said it might, but then I realized – that I didn’t give a fuck about whether Ned Stark approved of it or not. I gave a fuck that _you_ did, and I know it was mostly _you_ , and of course it would be because Stark wouldn’t have said half of the things you said, but it was for the best.”

“But – didn’t I _always_ say those same things–”

“I wasn’t in the right mind to hear you,” he says, “but you _did_ put me into it. I mean, I didn’t realize it wasn’t _so important_ until I was pretending the whole thing. If it makes any sense.”

“It does,” she says, “but – nonetheless. He was wrong to assume the worst of you. And _you_ are wrong to do the same. Will – will you believe me when I say that there’s more to you than the _actual_ worst parts? Even those – I don’t care, because eventually you always strive to be _better_ than they are and you wouldn’t be here otherwise. If your sister never could see it, her bloody loss.”

He shakes his head slightly, but when he looks down at her his eyes are _not_ dull at all. Fine, red-rimmed, and he has bags under them and he really needs to rest for a hell of a long time, but they’re as bright green as they were when he told her he dreamed of her a long time ago, and she wants to think they’re going to stay that way.

“Wench, has anyone told you that you’re bloody incredible?”

“Ser, I’m afraid that no one but _you_ ever has, not in the way you mean.”

“Their bloody loss,” he whispers, and for a moment she thinks he’s going to kiss her and he _does_ , but – her cheek, the ruined one, not her mouth.

“That,” he says, “was because it was the least I owed you,” he says. “And – if you’re _really_ sure –”

“Jaime, if you try to say anything that has the word _deserve_ in it I’m joining the bloody Night’s Watch and I’ll make sure they have me.”

“Fine, _that_ ’s something I wouldn’t like because then I’d have to join you and I had enough vows sworn when I was wearing white.”

“Good. I’m _sure_.”

She’s ready for it when his mouth meets hers, and it’s probably the least heated kiss in existence because neither of them pushes or hurries it forward or wants to do this _here_ , but he _means_ it, and she does, too, and she doesn’t sleep later that night because she has too much adrenaline tingling under her skin that she can’t get rid of and she just _can’t_ –

But he does, _almost_ soundlessly, except for a moment around dawn when his brow furrows and a horribly sad noise leaves his lips, but she’s way beyond _property_ these days, and she’s well beyond caring about what a woman should or shouldn’t do in a man’s bed, and _entirely_ beyond caring that her septa would have been horrified at her life choices, and so she sits up on the bed (not that she’s going to sleep anyway), moves his head on her thigh and runs her hand through his hair and not only he doesn’t wake up, but he goes back to sleep properly shortly, and he doesn’t wake up until the sun is coming through the windows and it’s full morning.

He looks up at her as her hand stills, even if her fingers are still tangled in his hair.

“Does that make me a man without imagination if I tell you that I had a dream like this, once?”

“Why, because that’d be the second time you told me?”

“Maybe,” he says, “also because it was _the same_ dream.” He looks like he wants to sit up but doesn’t for a moment or two, and then he shakes his head and does.

“And what was so – striking about it?” She asks.

He looks down at his left hand as she covers it with one of hers. “That you were the most beautiful thing I ever saw in my life in it, and if you try to say that I shouldn’t use that damned word at least for once, think that it’s how _you_ feel when I say I don’t deserve you.”

She had been about to.

She shakes her head and moves closer. “Fine, for this time you can say it,” she concedes, and she can feel his hand trembling as he kisses her with a lot more urgency than yesterday, but –

It’s not as if she had expected for things to smooth over at once.

It’s fine. They have time. And things are looking up, aren’t they?

 

\---

 

“Is there any particular reason why you’re here?” Theon Greyjoy tells Jaime as he sits down next to him. Jaime has no idea why he’s so fond of the godswood, but to each their habits, he figures.

“Aren’t you getting ready to meet the infamous dragon queen?”

“I’ll be there when I want to be,” he says. “I doubt she’d miss me either way. Aren’t _you_?”

“Not until Jon and Sansa plead my case, but I will have to. My brother’s there, after all.”

“Oh, I see. Now I think I know why you’re here.”

Jaime clears his throat. “Brienne did tell me. About – what you told her. And while I could do better, and maybe I will if he doesn’t have my head as I would probably deserve, I haven’t completely lost my wits _also_ because of what you told her, so – thank you, I suppose.”

“There was no need to.”

“Well, I have a feeling you might want to hear it nonetheless,” Jaime shrugs, and thinks that he can see some dark at the roots of Theon’s hair – maybe he won’t look older than _Jaime_ is in a while.

“It’s – nice to,” Theon admits. “Anyway, you do look better. Can you sleep at least?”

“Most nights,” he replies. “I mean, it’s nowhere near ideal, but I do. I don’t know if I would if you hadn’t talked to her, though.”

“Take it as payment for that time you screamed at Lord Umber to stop judging either of us.”

“Gods, I _so_ wasn’t thinking straight,” Jaime snorts, but that’s a fair point. “Anyway, that was – that was it. I’ll leave you alone if –”

“Brienne told me you jumped into a bear pit to save her life,” Theon interrupts him.

“I – I might have.”

“And she _does_ think high of you also for that, doesn’t she?”

“I – well, she does, I presume.”

“Well, Jeyne apparently thinks high of me because I jumped _with_ her from the damned ramparts and pretty much saved the both of us,” he says. “Next time you think every horrible thing you did means you don’t _deserve_ shit, consider that. And don’t look so terrified at the prospect of seeing your brother.”

“I’m _not_ –”

“You _are_. Just think that he wasn’t mauled at the bloody Red Wedding and that you still have a chance to make up for whichever way you wronged him. I don’t.”

Which is –

Which is a damned fair point, isn’t it?

“I’m sorry,” he says. “I – I wish I had nothing to do with that.”

“ _Your father_ was behind it, Lannister, and if both Jon and Sansa understood it maybe it’s time you get it, too.”

“My father was behind a lot of things I wish he had never dragged me into,” Jaime admits.

“How surprising. _Mine_ , too. And believe me, the moment you stop giving a shit about what _your father_ might’ve thought, your life improves steadily.”

Jaime nods and says nothing as he stares at the other trees in front of them. He looks at the damned golden hand still tied to his wrist. It’s _heavy_ , damn it.

“I’ll try to,” he finally says, and then heads back for the castle after Theon nods at him and sits back against the tree.

For a moment, he thinks he hears a crow croak his name, but then he decides that he must have made it up.

\--

“I’m sorry,” he says as soon as he and Tyrion in the same room without anyone else around.

“… Why, I’d have figured you’d say hello, first,” Tyrion says, cautiously, but at least he doesn’t sound like he wants Jaime to drop dead as soon as possible.

Jaime wishes he could laugh. “No, I – I need to tell you a few things, and then you have all the rights to tell me to fuck off, and _hi_ isn’t one of them.”

“Fine. Tell me.”

Jaime forces himself to actually _look_ at Tyrion as he speaks, and tries to _not_ think, _would he have gotten that scar if I had been around for Blackwater_?

“I’m sorry I never listened to you when it came to Cersei, I’m sorry I never tried harder to make her change her mind about you, I’m sorry I didn’t have the backbone to stand up to her on that matter, and I’m – I’m sorry I lied to you about Tysha and I’m sorry I ever thought listening to our father on that matter was a good idea, and you probably don’t care for the reasons I did it, but –”

“Actually, I do care to hear them,” he says. “In a less – let’s say, _horrible_ setting than last time.” Well, at least Tyrion’s _not_ telling him to go get burned by a damned dragon.

He takes a breath. Here it goes.

“It wasn’t long after Aerys. I imagine you know why I killed him, now.”

“The entire realm knows, by now,” Tyrion confirms.

“Well, teaches me for telling while I was screaming in front of the entirety of the northern bannermen. Well, I was young, I was – I had just spent two years guarding him and witnessing every foul thing he ordered among which the Starks dying slowly and painfully, Rhaegar left _me_ there without any other white cloak and on top of no one even asking me why I thought killing him was a good idea, I felt guilty about Elia and the children. Because I _should_ have protected them, I thought, but as someone made me notice lately, I couldn’t be in two places at the same time. Another thing Father should rot in hell for. I – I wasn’t thinking straight at the time. And _he_ never wanted me to take the white, and – I imagine you know how it feels to try and refuse him, don’t you?”

“I can’t disagree with that,” Tyrion admits.

“Anyway. I went with it. I convinced myself it would help you in the long run to justify it to myself and then I never even thought about it for years until – until _then_. And I know I can’t put it all on Father, and you don’t have to forgive me for it, but I’m sorry I ever did it and I’m sorry that in between him and Cersei I ended up ruining your life, too, when it was the last thing I wanted, and I just wanted you to know it.”

For a long moment, neither of them says a thing, and Jaime’s fine with it – he figures Tyrion would have to think about it.

Then –

“Damn it, Jaime, you know that you really make it hard to stay angry at you?”

“… Sorry?”

“You’re crying.”

“I’m – oh.” He wipes at his face. Hell, he _was_. “I – I hadn’t noticed.”

“ _I_ did,” Tyrion sighs, “and as much as a part of me says I should tell you to fuck off, maybe it’s not the part of me I’m most proud of. Never mind that I also did a lot of things I’m not proud of, either. And you’re bloody crying about this and it’s obvious you couldn’t be faking it.”

“It’s – obvious?”

“Cersei might have,” Tyrion says, “but I see you finally understood you’re _not_ like her at all and I know you wouldn’t. And – I’m not going to lie to you, it _hurt_. You do realize that lie made me think for half of my life that no one could ever want me if I didn’t pay for it and that Tysha didn’t deserve – what happened to her?”

“Why do you think I’m fucking crying? Tyrion, if I could apologize to Tysha herself I fucking _would_ , but I highly doubt I can.”

“And I can hear that you meant it,” he sighs. “So what about the fact that I _did_ murder our father?”

Jaime almost wants to laugh. “And who can blame you? He ruined your life. He ruined _my_ life. He ruined _all_ of us, and I spent a month throwing up half of my food thinking about everything I did wrong and somewhat _he_ was behind most of that. I don’t miss him and neither should you.”

Tyrion nods, takes a sip of his wine, then looks back up at him.

“Jaime, I really don’t want you to _fuck off_.”

“Wait – you don’t?”

“You’re right about a lot of things. And thing is, even if I still wanted to hate you for it – I mean, I _did_ want to hate you when you didn’t take my side over Cersei’s in front of her or not _too_ much, then I realized you spent most of your bloody time with _her_. I should have been surprised you took my side at all. And can you imagine her fucking _apologizing_ to me? It’s obvious you never meant to wish me ill, and – I hated the both of them. I always had. You _didn’t_. I cannot even imagine how harder must be for you to say all of that, so – no. Don’t fuck off and don’t throw yourself in front of a dragon. There’s a war looming, we have an _undead army_ at our gates and somehow _we_ are both in the same place, I would be a goddamned fool if I didn’t even try to get over it. Gods, I thought that would make you _stop_ crying, you know?”

Too bad that his vision is completely fucking blurred.

“I’m – it’s not the bad kind of,” he manages to say, and he can’t see the small hand tentatively covering his wrist through the blur in front of his eyes, but he feels it, and that’s more than he was hoping to get out of this conversation.

Maybe he can’t have _closure_ with anyone he’d need it from.

But if this is all he gets, he thinks it can be enough.

\--

“Are you sure?” Brienne asks him, for the third time, but he figures she has her reasons to.

“I’m sure,” he says. “Take the bloody thing off.”

She nods and carefully strips the golden hand away from his wrist.

He looks at it. It’s finely made, sure. He wanted it to match Cersei’s bloody golden hair.

 _As if_. He couldn’t have felt them under his fingers if they matched or not, and the thing is heavy and useless and he can’t bear to look at it anymore. The more time passes, the more he feels like it’s dragging him down, and after – after everything that went down lately, he has a feeling he needs to do something drastic about it.

He holds out his left and takes it from Brienne, then looks down at the expanse of snow beneath them.

He looks at it – he can’t understand how he ever decided wearing something so heavy, useless and pretty but without any substance to it whatsoever was a good idea.

He shrugs and throws it over the ramparts – it disappears in the freshly fallen snow almost instantly and – and he feels _goddamned relieved_.

“Lannister,” he hears from his left side, and – he’s somehow not surprised it’s _Tormund_. “What’re you freezin’ here for?”

“I was – throwing away something useless,” he says. Tormund looks at his arm, then at Brienne, then back at him.

“Good luck then,” he says, with the tone of someone who knows exactly what he did, and Jaime just nods back and watches him disappear on the other side of the ramparts.

“Does he know _something_?” Brienne asks.

“He was the one asking me the damned question about Cersei,” Jaime sighs, “but then again maybe it’s a good thing he did. I mean. It’s – it’s not _ideal_ , but it’s better that I realized it after all.”

“Are – are you not missing it?” She asks, glancing at her right side.

“No,” he says, “no, not at all.” And it’s true – he _doesn’t_. He’ll see the smith for a more practical one that might be lighter and more useful and that would be anything but bloody _gold_.

“I’m glad to hear it,” she says, and he’s not expecting it when she grabs his wrist gently and places a soft, light kiss over the red signs the leather straps had left on his right wrist, right over the scarring.

“Hells, wench,” he says, “I understand not _hating_ it, but – I can’t even look at that for long.”

“Why’s that? It’s still part of you and not counting the fact that you like to make me fear for your life entirely too much, there isn’t a _part of you_ that I’d change,” she says, sounding still so goddamned sure, and –

He doesn’t know if he believes it _himself_ – he’d like to, and maybe he’ll get there, but there’s too many things he would want to change when it comes down to it.

But the way she says it, sure and certain and courteous like only the best knights might or should be, he thinks he _could_ believe that, and maybe he _will_.

Until then, he figures, if she believes that for him, too, it won’t hurt at all.

 

 

End.


End file.
